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I 


The    WORKS  of  VOLTAIRE 


''Between  two  servants  of  Humanity ,  who  appeared 
eighteen  hundred  years  apart,  there  is  a  mysterious 
relation.  *  *  4;^  *  J^gt  us  say  it  with  a 

sentiment  of  profound  respect:  JESUS  WEPT: 
VOLTAIRE  SMILED.  Of  that  divine  tear  and  of 
that  hitman  smile  is  composed  the  sweetness  of  the  present 
civilization" 

VICTOR  HUGO. 


'M\^. 


VOl_XAlRE      RECEIVES       MME.      D'EPIIMAY      AT 
I-E6      OEUICES 


A  CR1TIC»/E.  a  DfOGRAPhY  BY 


New! 

OIgtoit  n°G°LeI^b  <> 


©re  HVNDRED&SlKrc- EIGHT  DESIGNS, 
COMPRISIING  REPRODvaiONS  OF  RARE 
aO  ENGRAVING &,  5TEEL  PLHTES,  PMO- 

■  TOORAVURES  8<  CUR10U5  rAC-&iMlLES. 


Copyright,   1901, 
By  E.  R.  DuMont 


Owned  by 

The  St.  Hubert  Guild 

New  York 


VOLTAIRE 


A    PHILOSOPHICAL    DICTIONARY 


Vol.  IV  —  [^\RT  1 


LIST  OF  PLATES 

Part  I 

PAGE 

Voltaire's  Reception  of  Madame  D'Epinay 
AT  Les  Delicf.s         .  .        Frojitispiecc 

The  Death  of  Coligny  ....  78 


A  PHILOSOPHICAL  DICTIONARY. 


CANNIBALS. 

SECTION    I. 

We  have  spoken  of  love.  It  is  hard  to  pass  from 
people  kissing  to  people  eating  one  another.  It  is, 
however,  but  too  true  that  there  have  been  cannibals. 
We  have  found  them  in  America ;  they  are,  perhaps, 
still  to  be  found ;  and  the  Cyclops  were  not  the  only 
individuals  in  antiquity  who  sometimes  fed  on  human 
flesh.  Juvenal  relates  that  among  the  Egyptians — 
that  wise  people,  so  renowned  for  their  laws — those 
pious  worshippers  of  crocodiles  and  onions — the 
Tentyrites  ate  one  of  their  enemies  v.ho  had  fallen 
into  their  hands.  He  does  not  tell  this  tale  on  hear- 
say; the  crime  was  committed  almost  before  his 
eyes ;  he  was  then  in  Egypt,  and  not  far  from  Ten- 
tyra.  On  this  occasion  he  quotes  the  Gascons  and 
the  Saguntines,  who  formerly  fed  on  the  flesh  of 
their  countrymen. 

In  1725  four  savages  were  brought  from  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  Fontainebleau,  with  whom  I  had  the  honor 
of  conversing.  There  was  among  them  a  lady  of  the 
country,  whom  I  asked  if  she  had  eaten  men ;  she 
answered,  with  great  simplicity  that  she  had.  I  ap- 
peared  somewhat   scandalized :    on    which    she  ex- 

5 


6  Philosophical 

cused  herself  by  saying  that  it  was  better  to  eat  one's 
dead  enemy  than  to  leave  him  to  be  devoured  by 
wild  beasts,  and  that  the  conquerors  deserved  to  have 
the  preference.  We  kill  our  neighbors  in  battles,  or 
skirmishes ;  and,  for  the  meanest  consideration,  pro- 
vide meals  for  the  crows  and  the  worms.  There  is 
the  horror;  there  is  the  crime.  What  matters  it, 
when  a  man  is  dead,  whether  he  is  eaten  by  a  soldier, 
or  by  a  dog  and  a  crow  ? 

We  have  more  respect  for  the  dead  than  for  the 
living.  It  would  be  better  to  respect  both  the  one  and 
the  other.  The  nations  called  polished  have  done 
right  in  not  putting  their  vanquished  enemies  on  the 
spit ;  for  if  we  were  allowed  to  eat  our  neighbors,  we 
should  soon  eat  our  countrymen,  which  would  be 
rather  unfortunate  for  the  social  virtues.  But  pol- 
ished nations  have  not  always  been  so ;  they  were  all 
for  a  long  time  savage ;  and,  in  the  infinite  number 
of  revolutions  which  this  globe  has  undergone,  man- 
kind have  been  sometimes  numerous  and  sometimes 
scarce.  It  has  been  with  human  beings  as  it  now 
is  with  elephants,  lions,  or  tigers,  the  race  of  which 
has  very  much  decreased.  In  times  when  a  country 
was  but  thinly  inhabited  by  men,  they  had  few  arts ; 
they  were  hunters.  The  custom  of  eating  what  they 
had  killed  easily  led  them  to  treat  their  enemies  like 
their  stags  and  their  boars.  It  was  superstition  that 
caused  human  victims  to  be  immolated ;  it  was  neces- 
sity that  caused  them  to  be  eaten. 

Which  is  the  greater  crime — to  assemble  piously 


Dictionary,  y 

together  to  plunge  a  knife  into  the  heart  of  a  girl 
adorned  with  fillets,  or  to  eat  a  worthless  man  who 
has  been  killed  in  our  own  defence? 

Yet  we  liave  many  more  instances  of  girls  and 
boys  sacrificed  than  of  girls  and  boys  eaten.  Almost 
every  nation  of  which  we  know  anything  has  sacri- 
ficed boys  and  girls.  The  Jews  immolated  them. 
This  was  called  the  Anathema ;  it  was  a  real  sacri- 
fice ;  and  in  Leviticus  it  is  ordained  that  the  living 
souls  which  shall  be  devoted  shall  not  be  spared ;  but 
it  is  not  in  any  manner  prescribed  that  they  shall  be 
eaten  ;  this  is  only  threatened.  Moses  tells  the  Jews 
that  unless  they  observe  his  ceremonies  they  shall 
not  only  have  the  itch,  but  the  mothers  shall  eat  their 
children.  It  is  true  that  in  the  time  of  Ezekiel  the 
Jews  must  have  been  accustomed  to  eat  human  flesh  ; 
for,  in  his  thirty-ninth  chapter,  he  foretells  to  them 
that  God  will  cause  them  to  eat,  not  only  the  horses 
of  their  enemies,  but  moreover  the  horsemen  and  the 
rest  of  the  warriors.  And,  indeed,  why  should  not 
the  Jews  have  been  cannibals  ?  It  was  the  only  thing 
wanting  to  make  the  people  of  God  the  most  abom- 
inable people  upon  earth. 

SECTION    II. 

In  the  essay  on  the  "Manners  and  Spirit  of  Na- 
tions" we  read  the  following  singular  passage : 
"Herrera  assures  us  that  the  Mexicans  ate  the  human 
victims  whom  they  immolated.  Most  of  the  first 
travellers  and  missionaries  say  that  the  Brazilians, 
the  Caribbees,  the  Iroquois,  the  Hurons,  and  some 


8  Philosophical 

other  tribes,  ate  their  captives  taken  in  war  ;  and  they 
do  not  consider  this  as  the  practice  of  some  individ- 
uals alone,  but  as  a  national  usage.  So  many  writers, 
ancient  and  modern,  have  spoken  of  cannibals,  that 
it  is  difficult  to  deny  their  existence.  A  hunting 
people,  like  the  Brazilians  or  the  Canadians,  not 
always  having  a  certain  subsistence,  may  sometimes 
become  cannibals.  Famine  and  revenge  accustomed 
them  to  this  kind  of  food ;  and  while  in  the  most 
civilized  ages  we  see  the  people  of  Paris  devouring 
the  bleeding  remains  of  Marshal  d'Ancre,  and  the 
people  of  The  Hague  eating  the  heart  of  the  grand 
pensionary,  De  Witt,  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised 
that  a  momentary  outrage  among  us  has  been  con- 
tinual among  savages. 

"The  most  ancient  books  we  have  leave  no  room 
to  doubt  that  hunger  has  driven  men  to  this  excess. 
The  prophet  Ezekiel,  according  to  some  commen- 
tators, promises  to  the  Hebrews  from  God  that  if 
they  defend  themselves  well  against  the  king  of 
Persia,  they  shall  eat  of  'the  flesh  of  horses  and  of 
mighty  men.' 

"Marco  Polo  says  that  in  his  time  in  a  part  of 
Tartary  the  magicians  or  priests — it  was  the  same 
thing — had  the  privilege  of  eating  the  flesh  of  crim- 
inals condemned  to  death.  All  this  is  shocking  to 
the  feelings ;  but  the  picture  of  humanity  must 
often  have  the  same  effect. 

"How  can  it  have  been  that  nations  constantly 
separated  from  one  another  have  united  in  so  horrible 


Dictionary.  9 

a  custom?  Must  we  believe  that  it  is  not  so  absolutely 
opposed  to  human  nature  as  it  appears  to  be?  It  is 
certain  that  it  has  been  rare,  but  it  is  equally  certain 
that  it  has  existed.  It  is  not  known  that  the  Tartars 
and  the  Jews  often  ate  their  fellow  creatures.  During 
the  sieges  of  Sancerre  and  Paris,  in  our  religious 
wars,  hunger  and  despair  compelled  mothers  to  feed 
on  the  flesh  of  their  children.  The  charitable  Las 
Casas,  bishop  of  Chiapa,  says  that  this  horror  was 
committed  in  America,  only  by  some  nations  among 
whom  he  had  not  travelled.  Dampierre  assures  us 
that  he  never  met  with  cannibals ;  and  at  this  day 
there  are  not,  perhaps,  any  tribes  which  retain  this 
horrible  custom." 

Americus  Vespucius  says  in  one  of  his  letters  that 
the  Brazilians  were  much  astonished  when  he  made 
them  understand  that  for  a  long  time  the  Europeans 
had  not  eaten  their  prisoners  of  war. 

According  to  Juvenal's  fifteenth  satire,  the  Gas- 
cons and  the  Spaniards  had  been  guilty  of  this  bar- 
barity. He  himself  witnessed  a  similar  abomination 
in  Egypt  during  the  consulate  of  Junius.  A  quarrel 
happening  between  the  inhabitants  of  Tentyra  and 
those  of  Ombi,  they  fought ;  and  an  Onibian  having 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Tentyrians,  they  had 
him  cooked,  and  ate  him,  all  but  the  bare  bones.  But 
he  does  not  say  that  this  was  the  usual  custom ;  on 
the  contrary,  he  speaks  of  it  as  an  act  of  more  than 
ordinary  fury. 

The  Jesuit  Charlevoix,  whom  I  knew  very  well, 


lO  Philosophical 

and  who  was  a  man  of  great  veracity,  gives  us  clearly 
to  understand  in  his  "History  of  Canada,"  in  which 
country  he  resided  thirty  years,  that  all  the  nations 
of  northern  America  were  cannibals;  since  he  re- 
marks, as  a  thing  very  extraordinary,  that  in  171 1 
the  Acadians  did  not  eat  men. 

The  Jesuit  Brebeuf  relates  that  in  1640  the  first 
Iroquois  that  was  converted,  having  unfortunately 
got  drunk  with  brandy,  was  taken  by  the  Hurons, 
then  at  war  with  the  Iroquois.  The  prisoner,  bap- 
tized by  Father  Brebeuf  by  the  name  of  Joseph,  was 
condemned  to  death.  He  was  put  to  a  thousand  tor- 
tures, which  he  endured,  singing  all  the  while,  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  his  country.  They  finished 
by  cutting  off  a  foot,  a  hand,  and  lastly  his  head ; 
after  which  the  Hurons  put  all  the  members  into  a 
cauldron,  each  one  partook  of  them,  and  a  piece  was 
offered  to  Father  Brebeuf. 

Charlevoix  speaks  in  another  place  of  twenty-two 
Hurons  eaten  by  the  Iroquois.  It  cannot,  then,  be 
doubted,  that  in  more  countries  than  one,  human 
nature  has  reached  this  last  pitch  of  horror ;  and  this 
execrable  custom  must  be  of  the  highest  antiquity; 
for  we  see  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  that  the  Jews  were 
threatened  with  eating  their  children  if  they  did  not 
obey  their  laws.  The  Jews  are  told  not  only  that 
they  shall  have  the  itch,  and  that  their  v/ives  shall 
give  themselves  up  to  others,  but  also  that  they  shall 
eat  their  sons  and  daughters  in  anguish  and  devasta- 
tion ;   that  thev  shall  contend  with  one  another  for 


Dictionary.  1 1 

the  eating  of  their  children ;  and  that  the  husband 
will  not  give  to  his  wife  a  morsel  of  her  son,  because, 
he  will  say,  he  has  hardly  enough  for  himself. 

Some  very  bold  critics  do  indeed  assert  that  the 
Book  of  Deuteronomy  was  not  composed  until  after 
the  siege  of  Samaria  by  Benhadad,  during  which,  it 
is  said  in  the  Second  Book  of  Kings,  that  mothers 
ate  their  children.  But  these  critics,  in  considering 
Deuteronomy  as  a  book  written  after  the  siege  of 
Samaria,  do  but  verify  this  terrible  occurrence. 
Others  assert  that  it  could  not  happen  as  it  is  related 
in  the  Second  Book  of  Kings.  It  is  there  said :  "And 
as  the  king  of  Israel  was  passing  by  upon  the  wall 
[of  Samaria] ,  there  cried  a  woman  unto  him,  saying, 
'Help,  my  lord,  O  king.'  And  he  said,  'If  the  Lord 
do  not  help  thee,  whence  shall  I  help  thee  ?  out  of  the 
barn  floor?  or  out  of  the  wine-press?'  And  the 
king  said  unto  her,  'What  aileth  thee  ?'  And  she  an- 
swered, 'This  woman  said  unto  me,  give  thy  son, 
that  we  may  eat  him  to-day,  and  we  shall  eat  my  son 
to-morrow.  So  we  boiled  my  son,  and  did  eat  him : 
and  I  said  unto  her  on  the  next  day,  'Give  thy  son, 
that  we  may  eat  him,'  and  she  hath  hid  her  son.'  " 

These  censors  assert  that  it  is  not  likely  that  while 
King  Benhadad  was  besieging  Samaria,  King  Joram 
passed  quietly  by  the  wall,  or  upon  the  wall,  to  settle 
differences  between  Samaritan  women.  It  is  still 
less  likely  that  one  child  should  not  have  satisfied 
two  women  for  two  days.  There  must  have  been 
enough  to  feed  them  for  four  days  at  least.    But  let 


12  Philosophical 

these  critics  reason  as  they  may,  we  must  believe 
that  fathers  and  mothers  ate  their  children  during 
the  siege  of  Samaria,  since  it  is  expressly  foretold 
in  Deuteronomy.  The  same  thing  happened  at  tlie 
siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadnezzar ;  and  this, 
too,  was  foretold  by  Ezekiel. 

Jeremiah  exclaims,  in  his  "Lamentations"  :  "Shall 
the  women  eat  their  fruit,  and  children  of  a  span 
long?"  And  in  another  place:  '"The  hands  of  the 
pitiful  women  have  sodden  their  own  children." 
Here  may  be  added  the  words  of  Baruch :  "Man 
has  eaten  the  flesh  of  his  son  and  of  his  daughter." 

This  horror  is  repeated  so  often  that  it  cannot  but 
be  true.  Lastly,  we  know  the  story  related  in 
Josephus,  of  the  woman  who  fed  on  the  flesh  of  her 
son  when  Titus  was  besieging  Jerusalem.  The  book 
attributed  to  Enoch,  cited  by  St.  Jude,  says  that  the 
giants  born  from  the  commerce  of  the  angels  \yith  the 
daughters  of  men  were  the  first  cannibals. 

In  the  eighth  homily  attributed  to  St.  Clement,  St. 
Peter,  who  is  made  to  speak  in  it,  says  that  these  same 
giants  quenched  their  thirst  with  human  blood  and 
ate  the  flesh  of  their  fellow  creatures.  Hence  re- 
sulted, adds  the  author,  maladies  until  then  un- 
known ;  monsters  of  all  kinds  sprung  up  on  the 
earth  ;  and  then  it  was  that  God  resolved  to  drown  all 
human  kind.  All  this  shows  us  how  universal  was 
the  reigning  opinion  of  the  existence  of  cannibals. 

What  St.  Peter  is  made  to  say  in  St,  Clement's 
homily  has  a   palpable   affinity   with   the    story   of 


Dictionary.  13 

Lvcaon,  one  of  the  oldest  of  Greek  fables,  and  which 
we  find  in  the  first  book  of  Ovid's  "Metamor- 
phoses." 

The  "Relations  of  the  Indies  and  China."  written 
in  the  eighth  century  by  two  Arabs,  and  translated 
by  the  Abbe  Renaudot,  is  not  a  book  to  which  implicit 
credit  should  be  attached  ;  far  from  it ;  but  we  must 
not  reject  all  these  two  travellers  say,  especially 
when  their  testimony  is  corroborated  by  that  of  other 
authors  who  have  merited  some  belief.  They  tell 
us  that  there  are  in  the  Indian  Sea  islands  peopled 
with  blacks  who  ate  men ;  they  call  these  islands 
Ramni. 

Marco  Polo,  who  had  not  read  the  works  of  these 
two  Arabs,  says  the  same  thing  four  hundred  years 
after  them.  Archbishop  Navarette,  who  was  after- 
wards a  voyager  in  the  same  seas,  confirms  this  ac- 
count: "Los  Eiiropcos  que  cogcn,  cs  consfaivtc  que 
vivos  se  los  van  comiendo." 

Texeira  asserts  that  the  people  of  Java  ate  human 
flesh,  which  abominable  custom  they  had  not  left  off 
more  than  two  hundred  years  before  his  time.  He 
adds  that  they  did  not  learn  milder  manners  until 
they  embraced  Mahometanism. 

The  same  thing  has  been  said  of  the  people  of 
Pegu,  of  the  Kaffirs,  and  of  several  other  African 
nations.  Marco  Polo,  whom  we  have  just  now  cited, 
says  that  in  some  Tartar  hordes,  when  a  criminal  had 
been  condemned  to  death  they  made  a  meal  of  him : 
"Haniio  costoro  nn  hestiale  c  orribilc  costume,  cite 


14  Philosophical 

quando  alcuno  e  guidicato  a  morte,  lo  tolgono,  e  cuo- 
cono,  e  mangian'  selo." 

What  is  more  extraordinary  and  incredible  is  that 
the  two  Arabs  attributed  to  the  Chinese  what  Marco 
Polo  says  of  some  of  the  Tartars :  that,  "in  general, 
the  Chinese  eat  all  who  have  been  killed."  This 
abomination  is  so  repugnant  to  Chinese  manners, 
that  it  cannot  be  believed.  Father  Parennin  has  re- 
futed it  by  saying  that  it  is  unworthy  of  refutation. 

It  must,  however,  be  observed  that  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, the  time  when  these  Arabs  wrote  their  travels, 
was  one  of  those  most  disastrous  to  the  Chinese.  Two 
hundred  thousand  Tartars  passed  the  great  wall, 
plundered  Pekin,  and  everywhere  spread  the  most 
horrible  desolation.  It  is  very  likely  that  there  was 
then  a  great  famine,  for  China  was  as  populous  as  it 
is  now ;  and  some  poor  creatures  among  the  lowest 
of  the  people  might  eat  dead  bodies.  What  interest 
could  these  Arabians  have  in  inventing  so  disgusting 
a  fable?  Perhaps  they,  like  most  other  travellers, 
took  a  particular  instance  for  a  national  custom. 

Not  to  go  so  far  for  examples,  we  have  one  in  our 
own  country,  in  the  very  province  in  which  I  write ; 
it  is  attested  by  our  conqueror,  our  master,  Julius 
Caesar.  He  was  besieging  Alexia,  in  the  Auxois. 
The  besieged  being  resolved  to  defend  themselves  to 
the  last  extremity,  and  wanting  provisions,  a  great 
council  was  assembled,  in  which  one  of  the  chiefs, 
named  Critognatus,  proposed  that  the  children  should 
be  eaten  one  after  another  to  sustain  the  strength  of 


Dictionary.  i  ^ 

the  combatants.  His  proposal  was  carried  by  a  ma- 
jority of  voices.  Nor  is  this  all ;  Critognatus  in  his 
harangue  tells  them  that  their  ancestors  had  had  re- 
course to  the  same  kind  of  sustenance  in  the  war  with 
the  Cimbri  and  Teutones. 

We  will  conclude  with  the  testimony  of  Mon- 
taigne. Speaking  of  what  was  told  him  by  the  com- 
panions of  Villegagnon,  returned  from  Brazil,  and 
of  what  he  had  seen  in  France,  he  certifies  that  the 
Brazilians  ate  their  enemies  killed  in  war,  but  mark 
what  follows :  "Is  it  more  barbarous  to  eat  a  man 
when  dead  than  to  have  him  roasted  by  a  slow  fire, 
or  torn  to  pieces  by  dogs  and  swine,  as  is  yet  fresh 
in  our  memories — and  that  not  between  ancient  ene- 
mies, but  among  neighbors  and  fellow-citizens — and, 
which  is  worse,  on  pretence  of  piety  and  religion?" 
What  a  question  for  a  philosopher  like  Montaigne ! 
Then,  if  Anacreon  and  Tibullus  had  been  Iroquois, 
they  would  have  eaten  men !  Alas  !  alas  ! 

SECTION    III. 

Well ;  two  Englishmen  have  sailed  round  the 
world.  They  have  discovered  that  New  Holland  is 
an  island  larger  than  Europe,  and  that  men  still  eat 
one  another  there,  as  in  New  Zealand.  Whence  come 
this  race  ?  supposing  that  they  exist.  Are  they  de- 
scended from  the  ancient  Egyptians,  from  the  ancient 
people  of  Ethiopia,  from  the  Africans,  from  the  In- 
dians— or  from  the  vultures,  or  the  wolves  ?  What 
a  contrast  between  Marcus  Aurelius,  or  Epictetus, 
and  the  cannibals  of  New  Zealand !    Yet  they  have 


1 6       ■  Philosophical 

the  same  organs,  they  are  alike  human  beings.  We 
have  already  treated  on  this  property  of  the  human 
race ;  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  another  paragraph. 

The  following  are  St.  Jerome's  own  words  in  one 
of  his  letters :  "Quid  loquar  de  cceteris  nationibus, 
quiim  ipse  adolescenhdus  in  Gallia  viderim  Scotos, 
gentem  Britannicam,  hiimanis  vesci  carnihus,  et  qtium 
per  silvas  porcorum  greges  pecudumque  reperiant, 
tarn  en  pastorum  nates  et  fceminarum  papillas  solere 
ahscindere  et  has  solas  ciborum  delicias  arhitrari?" 
— "What  shall  I  say  of  other  nations ;  when  I  my- 
self, when  young,  have  seen  Scotchmen  in  Gaul,  who, 
though  they  might  have  fed  on  swine  and  other  ani- 
mals of  the  forest,  chose  rather  to  cut  off  the  pos- 
teriors of  the  youths  and  the  breasts  of  the  young 
women,  and  considered  them  as  the  most  delicious 
food." 

Pelloutier,  who  sought  for  everything  that  might 
do  honor  to  the  Celts,  took  the  pains  to  contradict 
Jerome,  and  to  maintain  that  his  credulity  had  been 
imposed  on.  But  Jerome  speaks  very  gravely,  and  of 
what  he  saiv.  We  may,  with  deference,  dispute  with 
a  father  of  the  church  about  what  he  has  heard  ;  but 
to  doubt  of  what  he  has  seen  is  going  very  far.  After 
all,  the  safest  way  is  to  doubt  of  everything,  even  of 
what  we  have  seen  ourselves. 

One  word  more  on  cannibalism.  In  a  book  which 
has  had  considerable  success  among  the  well-dis- 
posed we  find  the  following,  or  words  to  the  same 
effect :     "In  Cromwell's  time  a  woman  who  kept  a 


Dictionary.  17 

tallow  chandler's  shop  in  Dublin  sold  excellent  can- 
dles, made  of  the  fat  of  Englishmen.  After  some 
time  one  of  her  customers  complained  that  the  can- 
dles were  not  so  good.  'Sir,'  said  the  woman,  *it  is 
because  we  are  short  of  Englishmen.'  " 

I  ask  which  were  the  most  guilty — those  who  as- 
sassinated the  English,  or  the  poor  woman  who  made 
candles  of  their  fat?  And  further,  I  ask  which  was 
the  greatest  crime — to  have  Englishmen  cooked  for 
dinner,  or  to  use  their  tallow  to  give  light  at  supper  ? 
It  appears  to  me  that  the  great  evil  is  the  being  killed  ; 
it  matters  little  to  us  whether,  after  death,  we  are 
roasted  on  the  spit  or  are  made  into  candles.  Indeed, 
no  well-disposed  man  can  be  unwilling  to  be  useful 
when  he  is  dead. 

CASTING  (IN  METAL). 

There  is  not  an  ancient  fable,  not  an  old  absurdity 
which  some  simpleton  will  not  revive,  and  that  in  a 
magisterial  tone,  if  it  be  but  authorized  by  some 
classical  or  theological  writer. 

Lycophron  (if  I  remember  rightly)  relates  that  a 
horde  of  robbers  who  had  been  justly  condemned  in 
Ethiopia  by  King  Actisanes  to  lose  their  ears  and 
noses,  fled  to  the  cataracts  of  the  Nile  and  from 
thence  penetrated  into  the  Sandy  Desert,  where  they 
at  length  built  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon. 

Lycophron,  and  after  him  Theopompus,  tells  us 

that  these  banditti,  reduced  to  extreme  want,  having 

neither  shoes,  nor  clothes,  nor  utensils,  nor  bread, 
Vol.  7—3 


1 8  Philosophical 

bethought  themselves  of  raising  a  statue  of  gold  to 
an  Eg}^ptian  god.  This  statue  was  ordered  one  even- 
ing and  made  in  the  course  of  the  night.  A  member 
of  the  university  much  attached  to  Lycophron  and 
the  Ethiopian  robbers  asserts  that  nothing  was  more 
common  in  the  venerable  ages  of  antiquity  than  to 
cast  a  statue  of  gold  in  one  night,  and  afterwards 
throw  it  into  a  fire  to  reduce  it  to  an  impalpable  pow- 
der, in  order  to  be  sv/allowed  by  a  whole  people. 

But  where  did  these  poor  devils,  without  breeches, 
find  so  much  gold?  "What,  sir!"  says  the  man  of 
learning,  "do  you  forget  that  they  had  stolen  enough 
to  buy  all  Africa  and  that  their  daughters'  ear-rings 
alone  were  worth  nine  millions  five  hundred  thousand 
livres  of  our  currency?" 

Be  it  so.  But  for  casting  a  statue  a  little  prepara- 
tion is  necessary.  M.  Le  Moine  employed  nearly  two 
years  in  casting  that  of  Louis  XV.  "Oh !  but  this 
Jupiter  Ammon  was  at  most  but  three  feet  high. 
Go  to  any  pewterer ;  will  he  not  make  you  half  a 
dozen  plates  in  a  day?" 

Sir.  a  statue  of  Jupiter  is  harder  to  make  than 
pewter  plates,  and  I  even  doubt  whether  your  thieves 
had  wherewith  to  make  plates  so  quickly,  clever  as 
they  might  be  at  pilfering.  It  is  not  very  likely  that 
they  had  the  necessary  apparatus ;  they  had  more 
need  to  provide  themselves  with  meal.  I  respect  Ly- 
cophron much,  but  this  profound  Greek  and  his  yet 
more  profound  commentators  know  so  little  of  the 
arts — thev  are  so  learned  in  all  that  is  useless,  and  so 


Dictionary.  1 9 

ignorant  in  all  that  concerns  the  necessaries  and  con- 
veniences of  life,  professions,  trades,  and  daily  occu- 
pations that  we  will  take  this  opportunity  of  inform- 
ing them  how  a  metal  figure  is  cast.  This  is  an 
operation  which  the}-  will  find  neither  in  Lycophron, 
nor  in  !\Ianetho,  nor  even  in  St.  Thomas's  dream. 
I  omit  many  other  preparations  which  the  encyclo- 
paedists, especially  M.  Diderot,  have  explained  much 
better  than  I  could  do,  in  the  work  which  must  im- 
mortalize their  glory  as  well  as  all  the  arts.  But  to 
form  a  clear  idea  of  the  process  of  this  art  the  artist 
must  be  seen  at  work.  Xo  one  can  ever  learn  in  a 
book  to  weave  stockings,  nor  to  polish  diamonds,  nor 
to  work  tapestry.  Arts  and  trades  are  learned  only 
by  example  and  practice. 

CATO. 

ON  SUICIDE,  AND  THE  ABBE  ST.  CYRAN's  BOOK  LEGITI- 
MATING  SUICIDE. 

The  ingenious  La  Motte  says  of  Cato,  in  one  of 

his  philosophical  rather  than  poetical  odes  : 

Caton,  dhtne  dme  plus  egale. 

Sous  r/iciircux  vaiiiqtwur  de  Pharsale, 

Eiit  souffert  que  Rome  plidt ; 

Mais,  incapable  de  se  rendre, 

II  fi'eJit  pas  la  force  d'attendre 

Un  pardon  qui  l' humilidt. 

Stern  Cato,  with  more  equal  soul, 

Had  bowed  to  Caesar's  wide  control — 

With  Rome  had  to  the  conqueror  bowed — 

But  that  his  spirit,  rough  and  proud, 

Had  not  the  courage  to  await 

A  pardoned  foe's  too  humbling  fate. 

It  was,  I  believe,  becau'^e  Cato's  soul  was  always 


20  Philosophical 

equal,  and  retained  to  the  last  its  love  for  his  country 
and  her  laws  that  he  chose  rather  to  perish  with  her 
than  to  crouch  to  the  tyrant.  He  died  as  he  had  lived. 
Incapable  of  surrendering !  And  to  whom  ?  To  the 
enemy  of  Rome — to  the  man  who  had  forcibly  robbed 
the  public  treasury  in  order  to  make  war  upon  his 
fellow-citizens  and  enslave  them  by  means  of  their 
own  money.  A  pardoned  foe !  It  seems  as  if  La 
Motte-Houdart  were  speaking  of  some  revolted  sub- 
ject who  might  have  obtained  his  majesty's  pardon 
by  letters  in  chancery. 

It  seems  rather  absurd  to  say  that  Cato  slew  him- 
self through  weakness.  None  but  a  strong  mind  can 
thus  surmount  the  most  powerful  instinct  of  nature. 
This  strength  is  sometimes  that  of  frenzy,  but  a 
frantic  man  is  not  weak. 

Suicide  is  forbidden  amongst  us  by  the  canon  law. 
But  the  decretals,  which  form  the  jurisprudence  of  a 
part  of  Europe,  were  unknown  to  Cato,  to  Brutus, 
to  Cassius,  to  the  sublime  Arria.  to  the  Emperor 
Otho,  to  Mark  Antony,  and  the  rest  of  the  heroes 
of  true  Rome,  who  preferred  a  voluntary  death  to  a 
life  which  they  believed  to  be  ignominious. 

We,  too,  kill  ourselves,  but  it  is  when  we  have  lost 
our  money,  or  in  the  very  rare  excess  of  foolish  pas- 
sion for  an  unworthy  object.  I  have  known  women 
kill  themselves  for  the  most  stupid  men  imaginable. 
And  sometimes  we  kill  ourselves  when  we  are  in  bad 
health,  which  action  is  a  real  weakness. 

Disgust  with  our  own  existence,  weariness  of  our- 


Dictionary.  21 

selves  is  a  malady  which  is  likewise  a  cause  of  sui- 
cide. The  remedy  is  a  little  exercise,  music,  hunting, 
the  play,  or  an  agreeable  woman.  The  man  who, 
in  a  fit  of  melancholy,  kills  himself  to-day,  would 
have  wished  to  live  had  he  waited  a  week. 

I  was  almost  an  eye-witness  of  a  suicide  which 
deserves  the  attention  of  all  cultivators  of  physical 
science.  A  man  of  a  serious  profession,  of  mature 
age,  of  regular  conduct,  without  passions,  and  above 
indigence,  killed  himself  on  Oct.  17,  1769,  and  left 
to  the  town  council  of  the  place  where  he  was  born,  a 
written  apology  for  his  voluntary  death,  \vhich  it 
was  thought  proper  not  to  publish  lest  it  should  en- 
courage men  to  quit  a  life  of  which  so  much  ill  is 
said.  Thus  far  there  is  nothing  extraordinary ;  such 
instances  are  almost  every  day  to  be  met  with.  The 
astonishing  part  of  the  story  is  this : 

His  brother  and  his  father  had  each  killed  himself 
at  the  same  age.  What  secret  disposition  of  organs, 
what  sympathy,  what  concurrence  of  physical  laws, 
occasions  a  father  and  his  two  sons  to  perish  by  their 
own  hands,  and  by  the  same  kind  of  death,  precisely 
when  they  have  attained  such  a  year?  Is  it  a  disease 
w^hich  unfolds  itself  successively  in  the  different 
members  of  a  family — as  we  often  see  fathers  and 
children  die  of  smallpox,  consumption,  or  any  other 
complaint  ?  Three  or  four  generations  have  become 
deaf  or  blind,  gouty  o*"  scorbutic,  at  a  predetermined 
period. 

Physical  organization,  of  which  moral  is  the  off- 


22  Philosophical 

spring,  transmits  the  same  character  from  father  to 
son  through  a  succession  of  ages.  The  Appii  were 
always  haughty  and  inflexible,  the  Catos  always  se- 
vere. The  whole  line  of  the  Guises  were  bold,  rash, 
factious ;  compounded  of  the  most  insolent  pride, 
and  the  most  seductive  politeness.  From  Francis 
de  Guise  to  him  who  alone  and  in  silence  went  and 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  people  of  Naples,  they 
were  all,  in  figure,  in  courage,  and  in  turn  of  mind, 
above  ordinary  men.  I  have  seen  whole  length  por- 
traits of  Francis  de  Guise,  of  the  Balafre,  and  of  his 
son :  they  are  all  six  feet  high,  with  the  same  fea- 
tures, the  same  courage  and  boldness  in  the  forehead, 
the  eye,  and  the  attitude. 

This  continuity,  this  series  of  beings  ahke  is  still 
more  observable  in  animals,  and  if  as  much  care  were 
taken  to  perpetuate  fine  races  of  men  as  some  nations 
still  take  to  prevent  the  mixing  of  the  breeds  of  their 
horses  and  hounds  the  genealogy  would  be  written 
in  the  countenance  and  displayed  in  the  manners. 
There  have  been  races  of  crooked  and  of  six-fingered 
people,  as  we  see  red-haired,  thick-lipped,  long- 
nosed,  and  flat-nosed  races. 

But  that  nature  should  so  dispose  the  organs  of  a 
whole  race  that  at  a  certain  age  each  individual  of 
that  family  will  have  a  passion  for  self-destruction 
— this  is  a  problem  which  all  the  sagacity  of  the  most 
attentive  anatomists  cannot  resolve.  The  effect  is 
certainly  all  physical,  but  it  belongs  to  occult  physics. 
Indeed,  what  principle  is  not  occult  ? 


Dictionary.  23 

We  are  not  informed,  nor  is  it  likely  that  in  the 
time  of  Caesar  and  the  emperors  the  inhabitants  of 
Great  Britain  killed  themselves  as  deliberately  as 
they  now  do,  when  they  have  the  vapors  which  they 
denominate  the  spleen. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Romans,  who  never  had 
the  spleen,  did  not  hesitate  to  put  themselves  to 
death.  They  reasoned,  they  were  philosophers,  and 
the  people  of  the  island  of  Britain  were  not  so.  Xow, 
English  citizens  are  philosophers  and  Roman  citi- 
zens are  nothing.  The  Englishman  quits  this  life 
proudly  and  disdainfully  when  the  whim  takes  him, 
but  the  Roman  must  have  an  indnlgentia  in  articiilo 
mortis ;  he  can  neither  live  nor  die. 

Sir  William  Temple  says  that  a  man  should  de- 
part when  he  has  no  longer  any  pleasure  in  remain- 
ing. So  died  Atticus.  Young  women  who  hang  and 
drown  themselves  for  love  should  then  listen  to  the 
voice  of  hope,  for  changes  are  as  frequent  in  love  as 
in  other  affairs. 

An  almost  infallible  means  of  saving  yourself 
from  the  desire  of  self-destruction  is  always  to  have 
something  to  do.  Creech,  the  commentator  on  Lu- 
cretius, marked  upon  his  manuscripts:  "N.  B.  Must 
hang  myself  when  I  have  finished."  He  kept  his 
word  with  himself  that  he  might  have  the  pleasure  of 
ending  like  his  author.  If  he  had  undertaken  a  com- 
mentary upon  Ovid  he  would  have  lived  longer. 

W'hy  have  we  fewer  suicides  in  the  country  than 
in  the  towns?    Because  in  the  fields  only  the  body 


24  Philosophical 

suffers ;  in  the  town  it  is  the  mind.  The  laborer  has 
not  time  to  be  melancholy ;  none  kill  themselves  but 
the  idle — they  who,  in  the  eyes  of  the  multitude,  are 
so  happy. 

I  shall  here  relate  some  suicides  that  have  hap- 
pened in  my  own  time,  several  of  which  have  al- 
ready been  published  in  other  works.  The  dead  may 
be  made  useful  to  the  living : 

A  Brief  Account  of  Some  Singular  Suicides. 

Philip  Mordaunt,  cousin-german  to  the  celebrated 
earl  of  Peterborough — so  well  known  in  all  the  Eu- 
ropean courts,  and  who  boasted  of  havmg  seen  more 
postillions  and  kings  than  any  other  man — was  a 
young  man  of  twenty-seven,  handsome,  well  made, 
rich,  of  noble  blood,  with  the  highest  pretensions, 
and,  which  was  more  than  all,  adored  jy  his  mis- 
tress, yet  Mordaunt  was  seized  with  a  disgust  for 
life.  He  paid  his  debts,  wrote  to  his  friends,  and 
even  made  some  verses  on  the  occasion.  He  dis- 
patched himself  with  a  pistol  without  having  given 
any  other  reason  than  that  his  soul  was  tired  of  his 
body  and  that  when  we  are  dissatisfied  with  our 
abode  we  ought  to  quit  it.  It  seemed  that  he  wished 
to  die  because  he  was  disgusted  with  his  good  for- 
tune. 

In  1726  Richard  Smith  exhibited  a  strange  spec- 
tacle to  the  world  from  a  very  different  cause.  Rich- 
ard Smith  w^as  disgusted  with  real  misfortune.  He 
had  been  rich,  and  he  was  poor;    he  had  been  in 


Dictionary.  25 

health,  and  he  was  infirm ;  he  had  a  wife  with  whom 
he  had  naught  but  his  misery  to  share;  their  only  re- 
maining property  was  a  child  in  the  cradle.  Richard 
Smith  and  Bridget  Smith,  with  common  consent, 
having  embraced  each  other  tenderly  and  given  their 
infant  the  last  kiss  began  with  killing  the  poor  child, 
after  which  they  hanged  themselves  to  the  posts  of 
their  bed. 

I  do  not  know  an)'  other  act  of  cold-blooded  hor- 
ror so  striking  as  this.  But  the  letter  which  these 
unfortunate  persons  wrote  to  their  cousin,  Mr. 
Brindley,  before  their  death,  is  as  singular  as  their 
death  itself.    ''We  believe,"  say  they,  "that  God  will 

forgive  us We  quit  this  life  because  we  are 

miserable — without  resource,  and  we  have  done  our 
only  son  the  service  of  killing  him,  lest  he  should 

become  as  unfortunate  as  ourselves "    It  must 

be  observed  that  these  people,  after  killing  their  son 
through  parental  tenderness,  wrote  to  recommend 
their  dog  and  cat  to  the  care  of  a  friend.  It  seems 
they  thought  it  easier  to  make  a  cat  and  dog  happy 
in  this  life  than  a  child,  and  they  would  not  be  a  bur- 
den to  their  friends. 

Lord  Scarborough  quitted  this  life  in  1727,  with 
the  same  coolness  as  he  had  quitted  his  office  of  Mas- 
ter of  the  Horse.  He  was  reproached,  in  the  House 
of  Peers,  with  taking  the  king's  part  because  he  had 
a  good  place  at  court.  "My  lords,"  said  he,  "to  prove 
to  you  that  my  opinion  is  independent  of  my  place,  I 
resign  it  this  moment."    He  afterwards  found  him- 


26  Philosophical 

self  in  a  perplexing  dilemma  between  a  mistress 
whom  he  loved,  but  to  whom  he  had  promised  noth- 
ing, and  a  woman  whom  he  esteemed,  and  to  whom 
he  had  promised  marriage.  He  killed  himself  to  es- 
cape from  his  embarrassment. 

These  tragical  stories  which  swarm  in  the  English 
newspapers,  have  made  the  rest  of  Europe  think  that, 
in  England,  men  kill  themselves  more  willingly  than 
elsewhere.  However,  I  know  not  but  there  are  as 
many  madmen  or  heroes  to  be  found  in  Paris  as  in 
London.  Perhaps,  if  our  newspapers  kept  an  exact 
list  of  all  who  had  been  so  infatuated  as  to  seek  their 
own  destruction,  and  so  lamentably  courageous  as 
to  eflfect  it,  we  should,  in  this  particular,  have  the 
misfortune  to  rival  the  English.  But  our  journals 
are  more  discreet.  In  such  of  them  as  are  acknowl- 
edged by  the  government  private  occurrences  are 
never  exposed  to  public  slander. 

All  I  can  venture  to  say  with  assurance  is  that 
there  is  no  reason  to  apprehend  that  this  rage  for 
self-murder  will  ever  become  an  epidemical  disorder. 
Against  this,  nature  has  too  well  provided.  Hope  and 
fear  are  the  powerful  agents  which  she  often  employs 
to  stay  the  hand  of  the  unhappy  individual  about 
to  strike  at  his  own  breast.  Cardinal  Dubois  was 
once  heard  to  say  to  himself :  "Kill  thyself !  Cow- 
ard, thou  darest  not !" 

It  is  said  that  there  have  been  countries  in  which 
a  council  was  established  to  grant  the  citizens  per- 
mission to  kill  themselves  when  thev  had  good  and 


Dictionary.  27 

sufficient  reasons.  I  answer  either  that  it  was  not  so 
or  that  those  magistrates  had  not  much  to  do. 

It  might,  indeed,  astonish  us,  and  does,  I  think, 
merit  a  serious  examination,  that  almost  all  the  an- 
cient Roman  heroes  killed  themselves  when  thev  had 
lost  a  battle  in  the  civil  wars.  But  I  do  not  find, 
neither  in  the  time  of  the  League,  nor  in  that  of  the 
Fronde,  nor  in  the  troubles  of  Italy,  nor  in  those  of 
England,  that  any  chief  thought  proper  to  die  by  his 
own  hand.  These  chiefs,  it  is  true,  were  Christians, 
and  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the  principles 
of  a  Christian  warrior  and  those  of  a  Pagan  hero. 
But  why  were  these  men  whom  Christianity  re- 
strained w^hen  they  w^ould  have  put  themselves  to 
death,  restrained  by  nothing  when  they  chose  to 
poison,  assassinate,  and  bring  their  conquered  ene- 
m.ies  to  the  scaffold  ?  Does  not  the  Christian  religion 
forbid  these  murders  much  more  than  self-murder, 
of  which  the  New  Testament  makes  no  mention  ? 

The  apostles  of  suicide  tell  us  that  it  is  quite  al- 
lowable to  quit  one's  house  when  one  is  tired  of  it. 
Agreed,  but  most  men  would  prefer  sleeping  in  a 
mean  house  to  lying  in  the  open  air. 

I  once  received  a  circular  letter  from  an  English- 
man, in  which  he  offered  a  prize  to  any  one  who 
should  most  satisfactorily  prove  that  there  are  occa- 
sions on  which  a  man  might  kill  himself.  I  made  no 
answer :  I  had  nothing  to  prove  to  him.  He  had 
only  to  examine  whether  he  liked  better  to  die  than  to 
live. 


28  Philosophical 

Another  Englishman  came  to  me  at  Paris  in  1724; 
he  was  ill,  and  promised  me  that  he  would  kill  him- 
self if  he  was  not  cured  by  J  uly  20.  He  accordingly 
gave  me  his  epitaph  in  these  words  :  "Valete  cura!" 
"Farewell  care!"  and  gave  me  twenty-five  louis  to 
get  a  small  monument  erected  to  him  at  the  end  of 
the  Faubourg  St.  Martin.  I  returned  him  his  money 
on  July  20,  and  kept  his  epitaph. 

In  my  own  time  the  last  prince  of  the  house  of 
Courtenai,  when  very  old,  and  the  last  branch  of 
Lorraine-Harcourt,  when  very  young,  destroyed 
themselves  almost  without  its  being  heard  of.  These 
occurrences  cause  a  terrible  uproar  the  first  day,  but 
when  the  property  of  the  deceased  has  been  divided 
they  are  no  longer  talked  of. 

The  following  most  remarkable  of  all  suicides  has 
just  occurred  at  Lyons,  in  June,  1770:  A  young 
man  well  known,  who  was  handsome,  well  made, 
clever,  and  amiable,  fell  in  love  with  a  young  woman 
whom  her  parents  would  not  give  to  him.  So  far 
we  have  nothing  more  than  the  opening  scene  of  a 
comedy,  the  astonishing  tragedy  is  to  follow. 

The  lover  broke  a  blood-vessel  and  the  surgeons 
informed  him  there  was  no  remedy.  His  mistress 
engaged  to  meet  him,  with  two  pistols  and  two  dag- 
gers in  order  that,  if  the  pistols  missed  the  daggers 
might  the  next  moment  pierce  their  hearts.  They 
embraced  each  other  for  the  last  time :  rose-colored 
ribbons  were  tied  to  the  triggers  of  the  pistols ;  the 
lover  holding  the  ribbon  of  his  mistress's  pistol,  while 


Dictionary.  dp 

she  held  the  ribbon  of  his.     Both  fired  at  a  signal 
given,  and  both  fell  at  the  same  instant. 

Of  this  fact  the  whole  city  of  Lyons  is  witness. 
Psetus  and  Arria,  you  set  the  example,  but  you  were 
condemned  by  a  tyrant,  while  love  alone  immolated 
these  two  victims. 

Lazvs  Against  Suicide. 

Has  any  law,  civil  or  religious,  ever  forbidden  a 
man  to  kill  himself,  on  pain  of  being  hanged  after 
death,  or  on  pain  of  being  damned  ?  It  is  true  that 
Virgil  has  said : 

Proxima  deinde  tenent  mcesti  loca,  qui  sibi  lethum 
Jnsoittes  peperere  rnanu,  lucemque  perosi 
Projecere  aiiimas.     Quam  vellent  cetke?-e  in  alto 
Nunc  et  paiiperiem  et  duros  perferre  labores! 
Fata  obstant,  tristique  palus  inamabilis  unda 
Alligat,  et  novies  Styx  interfusa  coercet. 

— ^NEis,  lib.  vi.  V.  434  et  seq. 

The  next  in  place,  and  punishment,  are  they 
"Who  prodigally  throw  their  souls  away — 
Fools,  who  repining  at  their  wretched  state. 
And  loathing  anxious  life,  suborn  their  fate; 
With  late  repentance  now  they  would  retrieve 
The  bodies  they  forsook,  and  wish  to  live; 
Their  pains  and  poverty  desire  to  bear. 
To  view  the  light  of  heaven  and  breathe  the  vital  air;— 
But  fate  forbids,  the  Stygian  fioods  oppose, 
And,  with  nine  circling  streams,  the  captive  souls  inclose. 

— Drvden. 

Such  was  the  religion  of  some  of  the  pagans, 
yet,  notwithstanding  the  weariness  which  awaited 
them  in  the  next  world  it  was  an  honor  to  quit  this 
by  killing  themselves — so  contradictory  are  the  ways 
of  men.  And  among  us  is  not  duelling  unfortu- 
nately still  honorable,  though  forbidden  by  reason, 
by  religion,  and  by  every  law?    If  Cato  and  Caesar, 


30  Philosophical 

Antony  and  Augustus,  were  not  duellists  it  was  not 
that  they  were  less  brave  than  our  Frenchmen.  If 
the  duke  of  Montmorency,  Marshal  de  iNIarillac, 
de  Thou,  Cinq-Mars,  and  so  many  others,  chose 
rather  to  be  dragged  to  execution  in  a  wagon,  like 
highwaymen,  than  to  kill  themselves  like  Cato  and 
Brutus,  it  was  not  that  they  had  less  courage  than 
those  Romans,  nor  less  of  what  is  called  honor.  The 
true  reason  is  that  at  Paris  self-murder  in  such  cases 
was  not  then  the  fashion;  but  it  was  the  fashion  at 
Rome. 

The  women  of  the  Malabar  coast  throw  them- 
selves, living,  on  the  funeral  piles  of  their  husbands. 
Have  they,  then,  more  courage  than  Cornelia?  No; 
but  in  that  country  it  is  the  custom  for  the  wives  to 
burn  themselves. 

In  Japan  it  is  the  custom  for  a  man  of  honor, 
when  he  has  been  insulted  by  another  man  of  honor, 
to  rip  open  his  belly  in  the  presence  of  his  enemy 
and  say  to  him :  "Do  you  likewise  if  thou  hast  the 
heart."  The  aggressor  is  dishonored  for  ever  if  he 
does  not  immediately  plunge  a  great  knife  into  his 
belly. 

The  only  religion  in  which  suicide  is  forbidden  by 
a  clear  and  positive  law  is  Mahometanism.  In  the 
fourth  sura  it  is  said :  "Do  not  kill  yourself,  for 
God  is  merciful  unto  you,  and  whosoever  killeth 
himself  through  malice  and  wickedness  shall  as- 
suredly be  burned  in  hell  fire." 

This  is  a  literal  translation.    The  text,  like  manv 


Dictionary.  31 

other  texts,  appears  to  want  common  sense.  What 
is  meant  by  "Do  not  kill  yourself  for  God  is  merci- 
ful"? Perhaps  we  are  to  understand — Do  not  sink 
vmder  your  misfortunes,  which  God  may  alleviate : 
do  not  be  so  foolish  as  to  kill  yourself  to-day  since 
you  may  be  happy  to-morrow. 

"And  whosoever  killeth  himself  through  malice 
and  wickedness."  This  is  yet  more  difficult  to  ex- 
plain. Perhaps,  in  all  antiquity,  this  never  happened 
to  any  one  but  the  Phrsedra  of  Euripides,  who 
hanged  herself  on  purpose  to  make  Theseus  believe 
that  she  had  been  forcibly  violated  by  Hippolytus. 
In  our  own  times  a  man  shot  himself  in  the  head, 
after  arranging  all  things  to  make  another  man  sus- 
pected of  the  act. 

In  the  play  of  George  Dandin,  his  jade  of  a  wife 
threatens  him  with  killing  herself  to  have  him 
hanged.  Such  cases  are  rare.  If  Mahomet  foresaw 
them  he  may  be  said  to  have  seen  a  great  way.  The 
famous  Duverger  de  Haurane,  abbot  of  St.  Cyran, 
regarded  as  the  founder  of  Port  Royal,  wrote,  about 
the  year  1608,  a  treatise  on  "Suicide,"  which  has 
become  one  of  the  scarcest  books  in  Europe. 

"The  Decalogue,"  says  he,  "forbids  us  to  kill.  In 
this  precept  self-murder  seems  no  less  to  be  com- 
prised than  murder  of  our  neighbor.  But  if  there 
are  cases  in  which  it  is  allowable  to  kill  our  neighbor 
there  likewise  are  cases  in  which  it  is  allowable  to 
kill  ourselves. 

"We  must  not  make  an  attempt  upon  our  lives 


32  Philosophical 

until  we  have  consulted  reason.  The  public  author- 
ity, which  holds  the  place  of  God,  may  dispose  of 
our  lives.  The  reason  of  man  may  likewise  hold  the 
place  of  the  reason  of  God :  it  is  a  ray  of  the  eternal 
light." 

St.  Cyran  extends  this  argument,  which  may  be 
considered  as  a  mere  sophism,  to  great  length,  but 
when  he  comes  to  the  explanation  and  the  details 
it  is  more  difficult  to  answer  him.  He  says :  "A 
man  may  kill  himself  for  the  good  of  his  prince, 
for  that  of  his  country,  or  for  that  of  his  relations." 

We  do  not,  indeed,  see  how  Codrus  or  Curtius 
could  be  condemned.  No  sovereign  would  dare  to 
punish  the  family  of  a  man  who  had  devoted  him- 
self to  death  for  him ;  nay,  there  is  not  one  who 
would  dare  neglect  to  recompense  it.  St.  Thomas, 
before  St.  Cyran,  had  said  the  same  thing.  But  we 
need  neither  St.  Thomas,  nor  Cardinal  Bonaventura, 
nor  Duverger  de  Haurane  to  tell  us  that  a  man  who 
dies  for  his  country  is  deserving  of  praise. 

The  abbot  of  St.  Cyran  concludes  that  it  is  al- 
lowable to  do  for  ourselves  what  it  is  noble  to  do  for 
others.  All  that  is  advanced  by  Plutarch,  by  Seneca, 
by  Montaigne,  and  by  fifty  other  philosophers,  in 
favor  of  suicide  is  sufficiently  known ;  it  is  a  hack- 
neyed topic — a  wornout  commonplace.  I  seek  not  to 
apologize  for  an  act  which  the  laws  condemn,  but 
neither  the  Old  Testament,  nor  the  New  has  ever 
forbidden  man  to  depart  this  life  when  it  has  become 
insupportable  to  him.     No  Roman  law  condemned 


Dictionary.  ^^ 

self-murder ;  on  the  contrar}',  the  following  was  the 
law  of  the  Emperor  Antoine,  which  was  never  re- 
voked : 

"li  your  father  or  your  brother  not  being  accused 
of  any  crime  kill  himself,  either  to  escape  from 
grief,  or  through  weariness  of  life,  or  through  de- 
spair, or  through  mental  derangement,  his  will  shall 
be  valid,  or,  if  he  die  intestate  his  heirs  shall  suc- 
ceed." 

Notwithstanding  this  humane  law  of  our  masters 
we  still  drag  on  a  sledge  and  drive  a  stake  through 
the  body  of  a  man  who  has  died  a  voluntary  death ; 
we  do  all  we  can  to  make  his  memory  infamous ; 
we  dishonor  his  family  as  far  as  we  are  able;  we 
punish  the  son  for  having  lost  his  father,  and  the 
widow  for  being  deprived  of  her  husband. 

We  even  confiscate  the  property  of  the  deceased, 
which  is  robbing  the  living  of  the  patrimony  which 
of  right  belongs  to  them.  This  custom  is  derived 
from  our  canon  law,  which  deprives  of  Christian 
burial  such  as  die  a  voluntary  death.  Hence  it  is 
concluded  that  we  cannot  inherit  from  a  man  who 
is  judged  to  have  no  inheritance  in  heaven.  The 
canon  law,  under  the  head  "De  Poenitentia,"  assures 
us  that  Judas  committed  a  greater  crime  in  strang- 
ling himself  than  in  selling  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

CELTS. 

Among   those   who   have   had   the   leisure,   the 
means,  and  the  courage  to  seek  for  the  origin  of 
Vol  7-3 


34  Philosophical 

nations,  there  have  been  some  who  have  found  that 
of  our  Celts,  or  at  least  would  make  us  believe  that 
they  had  met  with  it.  This  illusion  being  the  only 
recompense  of  their  immense  travail,  we  should  not 
envy  them  its  possession. 

If  we  wish  to  know  anything  about  the  Huns — 
who,  indeed,  are  scarcely  worth  knowing  anything 
about,  for  they  have  rendered  no  service  to  man- 
kind— we  find  some  slight  notices  of  those  barbar- 
ians among  the  Chinese — that  most  ancient  of  all  na- 
tions, after  the  Indians.  From  them  we  learn  that, 
in  certain  ages,  the  Huns  went  like  famishing 
wolves  and  ravaged  countries  which,  even  at  this 
day  are  regarded  as  places  of  exile  and  of  horror. 
This  is  a  very  melancholy,  a  very  miserable  sort  of 
knowledge.  It  is,  doubtless,  much  better  to  culti- 
vate a  useful  art  at  Paris,  Lyons,  or  Bordeaux,  than 
seriously  to  study  the  history  of  the  Huns  and  the 
bears.  Nevertheless  we  are  aided  in  these  researches 
by  some  of  the  Chinese  archives. 

But  for  the  Celts  there  are  no  archives.  We 
know  no  more  of  their  antiquities  than  we  do  of 
those  of  the  Samoyeds  or  the  Australasians. 

We  have  learned  nothing  about  our  ancestors  ex- 
cept from  the  few  words  which  their  conqueror. 
Julius  Caesar,  condescended  to  say  of  them.  He  be- 
gins his  "Commentaries"  by  dividing  the  Gauls 
into  the  Belgians,  Aquitanians.  and  Celts. 

Whence  some  of  the  daring  among  the  erudite 
have  concluded  that  the  Celts  were  the  Scythians, 


Dictionary.  ]  5 

and  they  have  made  these  Scythio-Celts  include  all 
Europe.  But  why  not  include  the  whole  earth? 
Why  stop  short  in  so  fine  a  career  ? 

We  have  also  been  duly  told  that  Noah's  son, 
Japhet,  came  out  of  the  Ark,  and  went  with  all  speed 
to  people  all  those  vast  regions  with  Celts,  whom  he 
governed  marvellously  well.  But  authors  of  greater 
modesty  refer  the  origin  of  our  Celts  to  the  tower  of 
Babel — to  the  confusion  of  tongues — to  Gomer,  of 
whom  no  one  ever  heard  until  the  very  recent  period 
when  some  wise  men  of  the  West  read  the  name  of 
Gomer  in  a  bad  translation  of  the  Septuagint. 

Bochart,  in  his  "Sacred  Chronology" — what  a 
chronolog}- ! — takes  quite  a  different  turn.  Of  these 
innumerable  hordes  of  Celts  he  makes  an  Egyptian 
colony,  skilfully  and  easily  led  by  Hercules  from 
the  fertile  banks  of  the  Nile  into  the  forests  and 
morasses  of  Germany,  whither,  no  doubt,  these  col- 
onists carried  the  arts  and  the  language  of  Egypt 
and  the  mysteries  of  Isis,  no  trace  of  which  has  ever 
been  found  among  them. 

I  think  they  are  still  more  to  be  congratulated 
on  their  discoveries,  who  say  that  the  Celts  of  the 
mountains  of  Dauphiny  were  called  Cottians,  from 
their  King  Cottius ;  that  the  Berichons  were  named 
from  their  King  Betrich ;  the  Vv'elsh,  or  Gaulish, 
from  their  King  Wallus,  and  the  Belgians  from  Bal- 
gem,  which  means  quarrelsome. 

A  still  finer  origin  is  that  of  the  Celto-Pannon- 
ians,  from  the  Latin  word  panniis,  cloth,  for.  we  are 


^6  Philosophical 

told  they  dressed  themselves  in  old  pieces  of  cloth 
badly  sewn  together,  much  resembling  a  harlequin's 
jacket.  But  the  best  origin  of  all  is,  undeniably,  the 
tower  of  Babel. 

CEREMONIES— TITLES— PRECEDENCE. 

All  these  things,  which  would  be  useless  and 
impertinent  in  a  state  of  pure  nature,  are,  in  our 
corrupt  and  ridiculous  state,  of  great  service.  Of  all 
nations,  the  Chinese  are  those  who  have  carried  the 
use  of  ceremonies  to  the  greatest  length ;  they  cer- 
tainly serve  to  calm  as  well  as  to  weary  the  mind. 
The  Chinese  porters  and  carters  are  obliged,  when- 
ever they  occasion  the  least  hindrance  in  the  streets, 
to  fall  on  their  knees  and  ask  one  another's  pardon 
according  to  the  prescribed  formula.  This  prevents 
ill  language,  blows  and  murders.  They  have  time 
to  grow  cool  and  are  then  willing  to  assist  one  an- 
other. 

The  more  free  a  people  are,  the  fewer  ceremonies, 
the  fewer  ostentatious  titles,  the  fewer  demonstra- 
tions of  annihilation  in  the  presence  of  a  superior, 
they  possess.  To  Scipio  men  said  "Scipio" ;  to 
Csesar,  "Caesar" ;  but  in  after  times  they  said  to  the 
emperors,  "your  majesty,"  "your  divinity." 

The  titles  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  were  "Peter" 
and  "Paul."  Their  successors  gave  one  another  the 
title  of  "your  holiness,"  which  is  not  to  be  found  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  nor  in  the  writings  of  the 
disciples. 


Dictionary.  3-7 

We  read  in  the  history  of  Germany  that  the 
dauphin  of  France,  afterwards  Charles  V.,  went  to 
the  Emperor  Charles  IV.  at  Metz  and  was  presented 
after  Cardinal  de  Perigord. 

There  has  since  been  a  time  when  chancellors  went 
before  cardinals;  after  which  cardinals  again  took 
precedence  of  chancellors. 

In  France  the  peers  preceded  the  princes  of  the 
blood,  going  in  the  order  of  their  creation,  until  the 
consecration  of  Henry  III. 

The  dignity  of  peer  was,  until  that  time,  so  ex- 
alted that  at  the  ceremony  of  the  consecration  of 
Elizabeth,  wife  to  Charles  IX.,  in  1572,  described 
by  Simon  Bouquet,  echevin  of  Paris,  it  is  said  that 
the  queen's  dames  and  demoiselles  having  handed  to 
the  dame  d'honneiir  the  bread,  wine  and  wax,  with 
the  silver,  for  the  offering  to  be  presented  to  the 
queen  by  the  said  dame  d'honneur,  the  said  dame 
d'honneufj  being  a  duchess,  commanded  the  dames 
to  go  and  carry  the  offering  to  the  princesses  them- 
selves, etc.  This  dame  d'honneur  was  the  wife  of  the 
constable  Montmorency. 

The  armchair,  the  chair  with  a  back,  the  stool,  the 
right  hand  and  the  left  were  for  several  ages  im- 
portant political  matters.  I  believe  that  we  owe  the 
ancient  etiquette  concerning  armchairs  to  the  circum- 
stance that  our  barbarians  of  ancestors  had  at  most 
but  one  in  a  house,  and  even  this  was  used  only  by 
the  sick.  In  some  provinces  of  Germany  and  Eng- 
land an  armchair  is  still  called  a  sick-chair. 


38  Philosophical 

Long  after  the  times  of  Attila  and  Dagobert,  when 
luxury  found  its  way  into  our  courts  and  the  great 
men  of  the  earth  had  two  or  three  armchairs  in  their 
donjons,  it  was  a  noble  distinction  to  sit  upon  one 
of  these  thrones  ;  and  a  castellain  would  place  among 
his  titles  how  he  had  gone  half  a  league  from  home 
to  pay  his  court  to  a  count,  and  how  he  had  been  re- 
ceived in  an  easy-chair. 

We  see  in  the  Memoirs  of  Mademoiselle  that  that 
august  princess  passed  one-fourth  of  her  life  amid 
the  mortal  agonies  of  disputes  for  the  back-chair. 
Were  you  to  sit  in  a  certain  apartment,  in  a  chair,  or 
on  a  stool,  or  not  to  sit  at  all  ?  Here  was  enough  to 
involve  a  whole  court  in  intrigue.  Manners  are  now 
more  easy ;  ladies  may  use  couches  and  sofas  with- 
out occasioning  any  disturbance  in  society. 

When  Cardinal  de  Richelieu  was  treating  with  the 
English  ambassadors  for  the  marriage  of  Henriette 
of  France  with  Charles  I.,  the  affair  was  on  the  point 
of  being  broken  off  on  account  of  a  demand  made 
by  the  ambassadors  of  two  or  three  steps  more  to- 
wards a  door;  but  the  cardinal  removed  the  diffi- 
culty by  taking  to  his  bed.  History  has  carefully 
handed  down  this  precious  circumstance.  I  believe 
that,  if  it  had  been  proposed  to  Scipio  to  get  between 
the  sheets  to  receive  the  visit  of  Hannibal,  he  would 
have  thought  the  ceremony  something  like  a  joke. 

For  a  whole  century  the  order  of  carriages  and 
taking  the  wall  were  testimonials  of  greatness  and 
the  source  of  pretensions,  disputes,  and  conflicts.    To 


Dictionary.  39 

procure  the  passing  of  one  carriage  before  another 
was  looked  upon  as  a  signal  victory.  The  ambas- 
sadors went  along  the  streets  as  if  they  were  con- 
tending for  the  prize  in  the  circus  ;  and  when  a  Span- 
ish minister  had  succeeded  in  making  a  Portuguese 
coachman  pull  up,  he  sent  a  courier  to  Madrid  to 
apprise  the  king,  his  master,  of  this  great  advantage. 

Our  histories  regale  us  with  fifty  pugilistic  com- 
bats for  precedence — as  that  of  the  parliament  with 
the  bishops'  clerks  at  the  funeral  of  Henry  IV'.,  the 
chainhrc  dcs  compfes  with  the  parliament  in  the  ca- 
thedral when  Louis  XIII.  gave  France  to  the  Virgin, 
the  duke  of  Epernon  with  the  keeper  of  the  seals, 
Du  Vair.  in  the  church  of  St.  Germain.  The  pres- 
idents of  the  cnqnctcs  buffeted  Savare,  the  doyen  of 
the  conseillers  dc  grand'  chamhrc,  to  make  him  quit 
his  place  of  honor  (so  much  is  honor  the  soul  of  mo- 
narchical governments ! ) ,  and  four  archers  were 
obliged  to  lay  hold  of  the  President  Barillon,  who 
w-as  beating  the  poor  doyen  without  mercy.  We  find 
no  contests  like  these  in  the  Areopagus,  nor  in  the 
Roman  senate. 

In  proportion  to  the  barbarism  of  countries  or 
the  weakness  of  courts,  we  find  ceremony  in  vogue. 
True  power  and  true  politeness  are  above  vanity.  We 
may  venture  to  believe  that  the  custom  will  at  last  be 
given  up  w'hich  some  ambassadors  still  retain,  of 
ruining  themselves  in  order  to  go  along  the  streets 
in  procession  with  a  few  hired  carriages,  fresh 
painted  and  gilded,  and  preceded  by  a  few  footmen. 


40  Philosophical 

This  is  called  "making  their  entry" ;  and  it  is  a  fine 
joke  to  make  your  entry  into  a  town  seven  or  eight 
months  before  you  arrive. 

This  important  affair  of  punctilio,  which  consti- 
tutes the  greatness  of  the  modern  Romans — this 
science  of  the  number  of  steps  that  should  be  made 
in  showing  in  a  monsignor,  in  drawing  or  half  draw- 
ing a  curtain,  in  walking  in  a  room  to  the  right  or  to 
the  left — this  great  art,  which  neither  Fabius  norCato 
could  ever  imagine,  is  beginning  to  sink;  and  the 
train-bearers  to  the  cardinals  complain  that  every- 
thing indicates  a  decline. 

A  French  colonel,  being  at  Brussels  a  year  after 
the  taking  of  that  place  by  Marshal  de  Saxe,  and 
having  nothing  to  do,  resolved  to  go  to  the  town  as- 
sembly. *Tt  is  held  at  a  princess',''  said  one  to  him. 
"Be  it  so,"  answered  the  other,  "what  matters  it  to 
me?"  "But  only  princes  go  there;  are  you  a 
prince  ?"  "Pshaw  !"  said  the  colonel, "they  are  a  very 
good  sort  of  princes ;  I  had  a  dozen  of  them  in  my 
anteroom  last  year,  when  we  had  taken  the  town, 
and  they  were  very  polite." 

In  turning  over  the  leaves  of  "Horace"  I  observe 
this  line  in  an  epistle  to  Maecenas,  "Te,  diilcis  amice 
revisani." — "I  will  come  and  see  you,  my  good 
friend."  This  Maecenas  was  the  second  person  in  the 
Roman  Empire ;  that  is,  a  man  of  greater  power  and 
influence  than  the  greatest  monarch  of  modern  Eu- 
rope. 

Looking  into  the  works  of  Corneille,  I  observed 


Dictionary.  41 

that  in  a  letter  to  the  great  Scuderi,  governor  of 
Notre  Dame  de  la  Garde,  etc.,  he  uses  this  expression 
in  reference  to  Cardinal  Richelieu :  "Monsieur  the 
cardinal,  your  master  and  mine."  It  is,  perhaps,  the 
first  time  that  such  language  has  been  applied  to  a 
minister,  since  there  have  been  ministers,  kings  and 
flatterers  in  the  world.  The  same  Peter  Corneille, 
the  author  of  "Cinna,"  humbly  dedicates  that  work  to 
the  Sieur  de  Montauron,  the  king's  treasurer,  whom 
in  direct  terms  he  compares  to  Augustus.  I  regret 
that  he  did  not  give  Montauron  the  title  of  mon- 
seigneur  or  my  lord. 

An  anecdote  is  related  of  an  old  officer,  but  little 
conversant  with  the  precedents  and  formulas  of 
vanity,  who  wrote  to  the  Marquis  Louvois  as  plain 
monsieur,  but  receiving  no  answer,  next  addressed 
him  under  the  title  of  monseigneur,  still,  however, 
without  effect,  the  unlucky  monsieur  continuing  to 
rankle  in  the  minister's  heart.  He  finally  directed  his 
letter  "to  my  God,  my  God  Louvois" ;  commencing 
it  by  the  words,  ''my  God,  my  Creator."  Does  not 
all  this  sufficiently  prove  that  the  Romans  were  mag- 
nanimous and  modest,  and  that  we  are  frivolous  and 
vain  ? 

"How  d'ye  do,  my  dear  friend?"  said  a  duke  and 
peer  to  a  gentleman.  "At  your  service,  my  dear 
friend,"  replied  he ;  and  from  that  instant  his  "dear 
friend"  became  his  implacable  enemy.  A  grandee  of 
Portugal  was  once  conversing  with  a  Spanish  hidalgo 
and   addressing  him  every   moment  in  the  terms. 


42  Philosophical 

"your  excellency."  The  Castilian  as  freqviently  re- 
plied, "your  courtesy"  (vuestra  vierced),  a  title  be- 
stowed on  those  who  have  none  by  right.  The  irri- 
tated Portuguese  in  return  retorted  "your  courtesy" 
on  the  Spaniard,  who  then  called  the  Portuguese 
"your  excellency."  The  Portuguese,  at  length 
wearied  out,  demanded,  "How  is  it  that  you  always 
call  me  your  courtesy,  when  I  call  you  your  excel- 
lency, and  your  excellency  when  I  call  you  your 
courtesy?"  "The  reason  is,"  says  the  Castilian  with 
a  bow,  "that  all  titles  are  equal  to  me,  provided  that 
there  is  nothing  equal  between  you  and  me." 

The  vanity  of  titles  was  not  introduced  into  our 
northern  climes  of  Europe  till  the  Romans  had  be- 
come acquainted  with  Asiatic  magnificence.  The 
greater  part  of  the  sovereigns  of  Asia  were,  and  still 
are.  cousins  german  of  the  sun  and  the  moon ;  their 
subjects  dare  not  make  any  pretension  to  such  high 
affinity  ;  and  many  a  provincial  governor,  who  styles 
himself  "nutmeg  of  consolation"  and  "rose  of  de- 
light" would  be  empaled  alive  if  he  were  to  claim  the 
slightest  relationship  to  the  sun  and  moon. 

Constantine  was,  I  think,  the  first  Roman  emperor 
who  overwhelmed  Christian  humility  in  a  page  of 
pompous  titles.  It  is  true  that  before  his  time  the 
emperors  bore  the  title  of  god,  but  the  term  implied 
nothing  similar  to  what  we  understand  by  it.  Divus 
Augustus,  Divus  Trajanus,  meant  St.  Augustus,  St. 
Trajan.     It  was  thought  only  conformable  to  the 


Dictionary.  43 

dignity  of  the  Roman  Empire  that  the  soul  of  its  chief 
should,  after  his  death,  ascend  to  heaven  ;  and  it  fre- 
quently even  happened  that  the  title  of  saint,  of 
god,  was  granted  to  the  emperor  by  a  sort  of  antici- 
pated inheritance.  Nearly  for  the  same  reason  the 
first  patriarchs  of  the  Christian  church  were  all  called 
"your  holiness."  They  were  thus  named  to  remind 
them  of  what  in  fact  they  ought  to  be. 

Men  sometimes  take  upon  themselves  very  humble 
titles,  provided  they  can  obtain  from  others  very  hon- 
orable ones.  Many  an  abbe  who  calls  himself  brother 
exacts  from  his  monks  the  title  of  monseigneur.  The 
pope  styles  himself  "servant  of  the  servants  of  God." 
An  honest  priest  of  Holstein  once  addressed  a  letter 
"to  Pius  IV^.,  servant  of  the  servants  of  God."  He 
afterwards  went  to  Rome  to  urge  his  suit,  and  the  in- 
quisition put  him  in  prison  to  teach  him  how  to  ad- 
dress letters. 

Formerly  the  emperor  alone  had  the  title  of 
majesty.  Other  sovereigns  were  called  your  high- 
ness, your  serenity,  your  grace.  Louis  XL  was  the 
first  in  France  who  was  generally  called  majesty,  a 
title  certainly  not  less  suitable  to  the  dignity  of  a 
powerful  hereditary  kingdom  than  to  an  elective  prin- 
cipality. But  long  after  him  the  term  highness  was 
applied  to  kings  of  France;  and  some  letters  to 
Henry  HL  are  still  extant  in  which  he  is  addressed 
by  that  title.  The  states  of  Orleans  objected  to 
Queen  Catherine  de  Medici  being  called  majesty. 


44  Philosophical 

But  this  last  denomination  gradually  prevailed.  The 
name  is  indifferent ;  it  is  the  power  alone  that  is 
not  so. 

The  German  chancery,  ever  unchangeable  in  its 
stately  formalities,  has  pretended  down  to  our  own 
times  that  no  kings  have  a  right  to  a  higher  title  than 
serenity.  At  the  celebrated  treaty  of  Westphalia,  in 
which  France  and  Sweden  dictated  the  law  to  the 
holy  Roman  Empire,  the  emperor's  plenipotentiar.''?s 
continually  presented  Latin  memorials,  in  which  "his 
most  sacred  imperial  majesty"  negotiated  with  the 
"most  serene  kings  of  France  and  Sweden" ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  French  and  Swedes  fail  not  to 
declare  that  their  "sacred  majesties  of  France  and 
Sweden"  had  many  subjects  of  complaint  against  the 
"most  serene  emperor."  Since  that  period,  however, 
the  great  sovereigns  have,  in  regard  to  rank,  been 
considered  as  equals,  and  he  alone  who  beats  his 
neighbor  is  adjudged  to  have  the  pre-eminence. 

Philip  II.  Avas  the  first  majesty  in  Spain,  for  the 
serenity  of  Charles  V.  was  converted  into  majesty 
only  on  account  of  the  empire.  The  children  of 
Philip  II.  were  the  first  highnesses ;  and  afterwards 
they  were  royal  highnesses.  The  duke  of  Orleans, 
brother  of  Louis  XIII.,  did  not  take  up  the  title  of 
royal  highness  till  1631  ;  then  the  prince  of  Conde 
claimed  that  the  most  serene  highness,  which  the 
Dukes  de  Vendome  did  not  venture  to  assume.  The 
duke  of  Savoy,  at  that  time  royal  highness,  after- 
wards   substituted    majesty.     The   grand   duke   of 


Dictionary.  4^ 

Florence  did  the  same,  excepting  as  to  majesty;  and 
finally  the  czar,  who  was  known  in  Europe  only  as 
the  grand  duke,  declared  himself  emperor,  and  was 
recognized  as  such. 

Formerly  there  were  only  two  marquises  in  Ger- 
many, two  in  France  and  two  in  Italy.  The  marquis 
of  Brandenburg  has  become  a  king,  and  a  great 
king.  But  at  present  our  Italian  and  French  mar- 
quises are  of  a  somewhat  different  species. 

If  an  Italian  citizen  has  the  honor  of  giving  a  din- 
ner to  the  legate  of  his  province,  and  the  legate,  when 
drinking,  says  to  him,  "Monsieur  le  marquis,  to  your 
good  health,"  he  suddenly  becomes  a  marquis,  he  and 
his  heirs  after  him,  forever.  If  the  inhabitant  of  any 
province  of  France,  whose  whole  estate  consists  of 
a  quarter  part  of  a  little  decayed  castle-ward,  goes  to 
Paris,  makes  something  of  a  fortune,  or  carries  the 
air  of  having  made  one,  he  is  styled  in  the  deeds  and 
legal  instruments  in  which  he  is  concerned  "high  and 
mighty  seigneur,  marquis  and  count,"  and  his  son 
will  be  denominated  by  his  notary  "very  high  and 
very  mighty  seigneur,"  and  as  this  frivolous  ambition 
is  in  no  way  injurious  to  government  or  civil  society, 
it  is  permitted  to  take  its  course.  Some  French  lords 
boast  of  employing  German  barons  in  their  stables ; 
some  German  lords  say  they  have  French  marquises 
in  their  kitchens ;  it  is  not  a  long  time  since  a  for- 
eigner at  Naples  made  his  coachman  a  duke.  Custom 
in  these  cases  has  more  power  than  royal  authority. 
If  you  are  but  little  known  at  Paris,  you  may  there  be 


46  Philosophical 

a  count  or  a  marquis  as  long  as  you  please ;  if  you 
are  connected  with  the  law  of  finance,  though  the 
king  should  confer  on  you  a  real  marquisate,  you  will 
not,  therefore,  be  monsieur  le  marquis.  The  cele- 
brated Samuel  Bernard  was,  in  truth,  more  a  count 
than  five  hundred  such  as  we  often  see  not  possessing 
four  acres  of  land.  The  king  had  converted  his  es- 
tate of  Coubert  into  a  fine  county ;  yet  if  on  any  oc- 
casion he  had  ordered  himself  to  be  announced  as 
Count  Bernard,  etc.,  he  would  have  excited  bursts 
of  laughter.  In  England  it  is  different ;  if  the  king 
confers  the  title  of  earl  or  baron  on  a  merchant,  all 
classes  address  him  with  the  designation  suitable  to 
it  without  the  slightest  hesitation.  By  persons  of  the 
highest  birth,  by  the  king  himself,  he  is  called  my 
lord.  It  is  the  same  in  Italy ;  there  is  a  register  kept 
there  of  monsignori.  The  pope  himself  addresses 
them  under  that  title ;  his  physician  is  monsignor, 
and  no  one  objects. 

In  France  the  title  of  monseigneur  or  my  lord  is  a 
very  serious  business.  Before  the  time  of  Cardinal 
Richelieu  a  bishop  was  only  ''a  most  reverend  father 
in  God." 

Before  the  year  1635  bishops  did  not  only  not  as- 
sume the  title  of  monseigneur  themselves,  but  they 
did  not  even  give  it  to  cardinals.  These  two  customs 
were  introduced  by  a  bishop  of  Chartres,  who,  in  full 
canonicals  of  lawn  and  purple,  went  to  call  Cardinal 
Richelieu    monseigneur,   on    which   occasion    Louis 


Dictionary.  47 

XIII.  observed  that  "Chartrain  would  not  mind 
saluting  the  cardinal  an  dcrricrc" 

It  is  only  since  that  period  that  bishops  have 
mutually  applied  to  each  other  the  title  of  mon- 
seigneur. 

The  public  made  no  objection  to  this  application 
of  it ;  but,  as  it  was  a  new  title,  not  conferred  on 
bishops  by  kings,  they  continued  to  be  called  sieurs 
in  edicts,  declarations,  ordinances  and  all  official  doc- 
uments ;  and  when  the  council  wrote  to  a  bishop 
they  gave  him  no  higher  title  than  monsieur. 

The  dukes  and  peers  have  encountered  more  diffi- 
culty in  acquiring  possession  of  the  title  of  mon- 
seigneur.  The  grandc  noblesse,  and  what  is  called 
the  grand  robe,  decidedly  refvise  them  that  distinc- 
tion. The  highest  gratification  of  human  pride  con- 
sists in  a  man's  receiving  titles  of  honor  from  those 
who  conceive  themselves  his  equals ;  but  to  attain 
this  is  exceedingly  difficult ;  pride  always  finds  pride 
to  contend  wdth. 

When  the  dukes  insisted  on  receiving  the  title  of 
monseigneur  from  the  class  of  gentlemen,  the  presi- 
dents of  the  parliaments  required  the  same  from  ad- 
vocates and  proctors.  A  certain  president  actually 
refused  to  be  bled  because  his  surgeon  asked :  "In 
which  arm  will  you  be  bled,  monsieur?"  An  old 
counsellor  treated  this  matter  somew'hat  more  gayly. 
A  pleader  was  saying  to  him,  "Monseigneur,  mon- 
sieur, vour  secretary"    ....    He  stopped  him  short : 


48  Philosophical 

"You  have  uttered  three  blunders,"  says  he,  "in  as 
many  words.  I  am  not  monseigneur ;  my  secretary 
is  not  monsieur;    he  is  my  clerk." 

To  put  an  end  to  this  grand  conflict  of  vanity  it 
will  eventually  be  found  necessary  to  give  the  title 
of  monseigneur  to  every  individual  in  the  nation ;  as 
women,  who  were  formerly  content  with  mademoi- 
selle, are  now  to  be  called  madame.  In  Spain,  when 
a  mendicant  meets  a  brother  beggar,  he  thus  accosts 
him  :  "Has  your  courtesy  taken  chocolate  ?"  This 
politeness  of  language  elevates  the  mind  and  keeps 
up  the  dignity  of  the  species.  Caesar  and  Pompey 
were  called  in  the  senate  Caesar  and  Pompey.  But 
these  men  knew  nothing  of  life.  They  ended  their 
letters  with  vale — adieu.  We,  who  possess  more 
exalted  notions,  were  sixty  years  ago  "affectionate 
servants" ;  then  "very  humble  and  very  obedient" ; 
and  now  we  "have  the  honor  to  be"  so.  I  really 
grieve  for  posterity,  which  will  find  it  extremely 
difficult  to  add  to  these  very  beautiful  formulas.  The 
Duke  d'fipernon,  the  first  of  Gascons  in  pride, 
though  far  from  being  the  first  of  statesmen,  wrote 
on  his  deathbed  to  Cardinal  Richelieu  and  ended  his 
letter  with  :  "Your  very  humble  and  very  obedient." 
Recollecting,  however,  that  the  cardinal  had  used 
only  the  phrase  "very  affectionate,"  he  despatched 
an  express  to  bring  back  the  letter  ( for  it  had  been 
actually  sent  ofT),  began  it  anew,  signed  "very  affec- 
tionate," and  died  in  the  bed  of  honor. 

We  have  made  many  of  these  observations  else- 


Dictionary.  49 

where.  It  is  well,  however,  to  repeat  them,  were  it 
only  to  correct  some  pompous  peacocks,  who  would 
strut  away  their  lives  in  contemptibly  displaying 
their  plumes  and  their  pride. 

CERTAIN— CERTAIXTY. 

I  AM  certain ;  I  have  friends ;  my  fortune  is 
secure ;  my  relations  will  never  abandon  me  ;  I  shall 
have  justice  done  me ;  my  work  is  good,  it  will  be 
well  received ;  what  is  owing  to  me  will  be  paid ;  mv 
friend  will  be  faithful,  he  has  sworn  it ;  the  minister 
will  advance  me — he  has,  by  the  way,  promised  it — 
all  these  are  words  which  a  man  who  has  lived  a 
short  time  in  the  world  erases  from  his  dictionary. 

When  the  judges  condemned  LWuglade,  Le 
Brun,  Calas,  Sirven,  Martin,  Montbailli,  and  so 
many  others,  since  acknowledged  to  have  been  inno- 
cent, they  were  certain,  or  they  ought  to  have  been 
certain,  that  all  these  unhappy  men  were  guilty ;  yet 
they  were  deceived.  There  are  two  ways  of  being 
deceived ;  by  false  judgment  and  self-blindness — 
that  of  erring  like  a  man  of  genius,  and  that  of  decid- 
ing like  a  fool. 

The  judges  deceived  themselves  like  men  of 
genius  in  the  affair  of  L'Anglade;  they  were 
blinded  by  dazzling  appearances  and  did  not  suffi- 
ciently examine  the  probabilities  on  the  other  side. 
Their  wisdom  made  them  believe  it  certain  that 
L'Anglade  had  committed  a  theft,  which  he  certainly 

had  not  committed ;  and  on  this  miserable  uncertain 
Vol.  7—4 


50  Philosophical 

certainty  of  the  human  mind,  a  gentleman  was  put  to 
the  ordinary  and  extraordinary  question  ;  subsequent 
thrown,  without  succor,  into  a  dungeon  and  con- 
demned to  the  galleys,  where  he  died.  His  wife  was 
shut  up  in  another  dungeon,  with  her  daughter, 
aged  seven  years,  who  afterwards  married  a  coun- 
sellor of  the  same  parliament  which  had  condemned 
her  father  to  the  galleys  and  her  mother  to  banish- 
ment. 

It  is  clear  that  the  judges  would  not  have  pro- 
nounced this  sentence  had  they  been  really  certain. 
However,  even  at  the  time  this  sentence  was  passed 
several  persons  knew  that  the  theft  had  been  com- 
mitted by  a  priest  named  Gagnat.  associated  with  a 
highwayman,  and  the  innocence  of  L'Anglade  was 
not  recognized  till  after  his  death. 

They  were  in  the  same  manner  certain  when,  by  a 
sentence  in  the  first  instance,  they  condemned  to 
the  wheel  the  innocent  Le  Brun,  who,  by  an  arret 
pronounced  on  his  appeal,  was  broken  on  the  rack,, 
and  died  under  the  torture. 

The  examples  of  Galas  and  Sirven  are  well  known, 
that  of  Martin  is  less  so.  He  was  an  honest  agricul- 
turist near  Bar  in  Lorraine.  A  villain  stole  his  dress 
and  in  this  dress  murdered  a  traveller  whom  he  knew 
to  have  money  and  whose  route  he  had  watched. 
Martin  was  accused,  his  dress  was  a  witness  against 
him ;  the  judges  regarded  this  evidence  as  a  cer- 
tainty. Not  the  past  conduct  of  the  prisoner,  a  num- 
erous family  whom  he  had  brought  up  virtuously. 


Dictionary.  5 1 

neither  the  little  money  found  on  him,  nor  the  ex- 
treme probability  of  his  innocence — nothing  could 
save  him.  The  subaltern  judge  made  a  merit  of  his 
rigor.  He  condemned  the  innocent  victim  to  be 
broken  on  the  wheel,  and,  by  an  unhappy  fatality  the 
sentence  was  executed  to  the  full  extent.  The  senior 
Martin  is  broken  alive,  calling  God  to  witness  his 
innocence  to  his  last  breath ;  his  family  is  dispersed, 
his  little  property  is  confiscated,  and  scarcely  are  his 
broken  members  exposed  on  the  great  road  when  the 
assassin  who  had  committed  the  murder  and  theft  is 
put  in  prison  for  another  crime,  and  confesses  on  the 
rack,  to  which  he  is  condemned  in  his  turn,  that  he 
only  was  guilty  of  the  crime  for  which  Martin  had 
suffered  torture  and  death. 

Montbailli,  who  slept  with  his  wife,  was  accused 
with  having,  in  concert  with  her,  killed  his  mother, 
who  had  evidently  died  of  apoplexy.  The  council  of 
Arras  condemned  Montbailli  to  expire  on  the  rack, 
and  his  wife  to  be  burnt.  Their  innocence  was  dis- 
covered, but  not  until  Montbailli  had  been  tortured. 
Let  us  cease  advertence  to  these  melancholy  adven- 
tures, which  make  us  groan  at  the  human  condition  ; 
but  let  us  continue  to  lament  the  pretended  certainty 
of  judges,  when  they  pass  such  sentences. 

There  is  no  certainty,  except  when  it  is  physically 
or  morally  impossible  that  the  thing  can  be  other- 
wise. What !  is  a  strict  demonstration  necessary  to 
enable  us  to  assert  that  the  surface  of  a  sphere  is 
equal  to  four  times  the  area  of  its  great  circle ;   and 


52  Philosophical 

is  not  one  required  to  warrant  taking  away  the  life  of 
a  citizen  by  a  disgraceful  punishment? 

If  such  is  the  misfortune  of  humanity  that  judges 
must  be  contented  with  extreme  probabihties,  they 
should  at  least  consult  the  age,  the  rank,  the  conduct 
of  the  accused — the  interest  which  he  could  have  in 
committing  the  crime,  and  the  interest  of  his  enemies 
to  destroy  him.  Every  judge  should  say  to  himself : 
Will  not  posterity,  will  not  entire  Europe  condemn 
my  sentence  ?  Shall  I  sleep  tranquilly  with  my  hands 
tainted  with  innocent  blood  ?  Let  us  pass  from  this 
horrible  picture  to  other  examples  of  a  certainty 
which  leads  directly  to  error. 

Why  art  thou  loaded  with  chains,  fanatical  and 
unhappy  Santon  ?  Why  hast  thou  added  a  large  iron 
ring  on  thy  miserable  scourge?  It  is  because  I  am 
certain  of  being  one  day  placed  in  the  first  heaven, 
by  the  side  of  our  great  prophet.  Alas,  my  friend, 
come  with  me  to  the  neighborhood  of  Mount  Athos 
and  thou  wilt  see  three  thousand  mendicants  who  are 
as  certain  that  thou  wilt  go  to  the  gulf  which  is  under 
the  narrow  bridge,  as  that  they  will  all  go  to  the  first 
heaven ! 

Stop,  miserable  Malabar  widow,  believe  not  the 
fool  who  persuades  you  that  you  shall  be  reunited  to 
your  husband  in  all  the  delights  of  another  world,  if 
you  burn  yourself  on  his  funeral  pile !  No,  I  persist 
in  burning  myself  because  I  am  certain  of  living  in 
felicity  with  my  husband ;  my  brahmin  told  me  so. 

Let  us  attend  to  less  frightful  certainties,  and 


Dictionary.  ^2 

which  have  a  Httle  more  appearance  of  truth.  What 
is  the  age  of  your  friend  Christopher?  Twenty-eight 
years.  I  have  seen  his  marriage  contract,  and  his 
baptismal  register ;  I  knew  him  in  his  infancy ;  he 
is  twenty-eight — I  am  certain  of  it. 

Scarcely  have  I  heard  the  answer  of  this  man, 
so  sure  of  what  he  said,  and  of  twenty  others  who 
confirmed  the  same  thing,  when  I  learn  that  for 
secret  reasons,  and  by  a  singular  circumstance  the 
baptismal  register  of  Christopher  has  been  antedated. 
Those  to  whom  I  had  spoken  as  yet  know  nothing  of 
It,  yet  they  have  still  the  same  certainty  of  that  which 
is  not. 

If  you  had  asked  the  whole  earth  before  the  time 
of  Copernicus :  has  the  sun  risen  ?  has  it  set  to-day  ? 
all  men  would  have  answered :  We  are  quite  certain 
of  it.    They  were  certain  and  they  were  in  error. 

Witchcraft,  divinations,  and  possessions  were  for 
a  long  time  the  most  certain  things  in  the  world  in 
the  eyes  of  society.  What  an  innumerable  crowd  of 
people  who  have  seen  all  these  fine  things  and  who 
have  been  certain  of  them !  At  present  this  certainty 
is  a  little  shaken. 

A  young  man  who  is  beginning  to  study  geometry 
comes  to  me  ;  he  is  only  at  the  definition  of  triangles. 
Are  you  not  certain,  said  I  to  him,  that  the  three 
angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles? 
He  answered  that  not  only  was  he  not  certain  of  it, 
but  that  he  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  the  proposi- 
tion.    I  demonstrated  it  to  him.     He  then  became 


54  Philosophical 

very  certain  of  it,  and  will  remain  so  all  his  life. 
This  is  a  certainty  very  different  from  the  others ; 
they  were  only  probabilities  and  these  probabilities, 
when  examined,  have  turned  out  errors,  but  mathe- 
matical certainty  is  immutable  and  eternal. 

I  exist,  I  think,  I  feel  grief — is  all  that  as  certain 
as  a  geometrical  truth?  Yes,  skeptical  as  I  am,  I 
avow  it.  Why?  It  is  that  these  truths  are  proved 
by  the  same  principle  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  thing 
to  exist  and  not  exist  at  the  same  time.  I  cannot 
at  the  same  time  feel  and  not  feel.  A  triangle  can- 
not at  the  same  time  contain  a  hundred  and  eighty 
degrees,  which  are  the  sum  of  two  right  angles,  and 
not  contain  them.  The  physical  certainty  of  my  ex- 
istence, of  my  identity,  is  of  the  same  value  as  mathe- 
matical certainty,  although  it  is  of  a  different  kind. 

It  is  not  the  same  with  the  certainty  founded  on 
appearances,  or  on  the  unanimous  testimony  of  man- 
kind. 

But  how,  you  will  say  to  me,  are  you  not  certain 
that  Pekin  exists  ?  Have  you  not  merchandise  from 
Pekin?  People  of  different  countries  and  different 
opinions  have  vehemently  written  against  one  an- 
other while  preaching  the  truth  at  Pekin ;  then  are 
you  not  assured  of  the  existence  of  this  town?  I 
answer  that  it  is  extremely  probable  that  there  may 
be  a  city  of  Pekin  but  I  would  not  wager  my  life  that 
such  a  town  exists,  and  I  would  at  any  time  wager 
my  life  that  the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal 
to  two  right  angles. 


Dictionary.  ^^ 

In  thQ"Diction>iairc  Encyclopediquc" a.  very  pleas- 
ant thing  appears.  It  is  there  maintained  that  a  man 
ought  to  be  as  certain  that  Marshal  Saxe  rose  from 
the  dead,  if  all  Paris  tells  him  so,  as  he  is  sure  that 
Marshal  Saxe  gained  the  battle  of  Fontenoy,  upon 
the  same  testimony.  Pray  observe  the  beauty  of  this 
reasoning :  as  I  believe  all  Paris  when  it  tells  me  a 
thing  morally  possible,  I  ought  to  believe  all  Paris 
when  it  tells  me  a  thing  -morally  and  physically  im- 
possible. Apparently  the  author  of  this  article  has 
a  disposition  to  be  risible ;  as  to  ourselves  who  have 
only  undertaken  this  little  dictionary  to  ask  a  few 
questions,  we  are  very  far  from  possessing  this  very 
extensive  certainty. 

CHAIN  OF  CREATED  BEINGS. 

The  gradation  of  beings  rising  from  the  lowest 
to  the  Great  Supreme — the  scale  of  infinity — is  an 
idea  that  fills  us  with  admiration,  but  when  steadily 
regarded  this  phantom  disappears,  as  apparitions 
were  wont  to  vanish  at  the  crowing  of  the  cock. 

The  imagination  is  pleased  with  the  imperceptible 
transition  from  brute  matter  to  organized  matter, 
from  plants  to  zoophytes,  from  zoophytes  to  animals, 
from  animals  to  men,  from  men  to  genii,  from  these 
genii,  clad  in  a  light  aerial  body,  to  immaterial  sub- 
stances of  a  thousand  dififerent  orders,  rising  from 
beauty  to  perfection,  up  to  God  Himself.  This  hier- 
archy is  very  pleasing  to  young  men  who  look  upon 
it  as  upon  the  pope  and  cardinals,  followed  by  the 


56  Philosophical 

archbishops  and  bishops,  after  whom  are  the  vicars, 
curates  and  priests,  the  deacons  and  subdeacons, 
then  come  the  monks,  and  the  capuchins  bring  up  the 
rear. 

But  there  is,  perhaps,  a  somewhat  greater  distance 
between  God  and  His  most  perfect  creatures  than 
between  the  holy  father  and  the  dean  of  the  sacred 
college.  The  dean  may  become  pope,  but  can  the 
most  perfect  genii  created  by  the  Supreme  Being  be- 
come God?    Is  there  not  infinity  between  them? 

Nor  does  this  chain,  this  pretended  gradation,  any 
more  exist  in  vegetables  and  animals ;  the  proof  is 
that  some  species  of  plants  and  animals  have  been 
entirely  destroyed.  We  have  no  murex.  The  Jews 
were  forbidden  to  eat  griffin  and  ixion,  these  two 
species,  whatever  Bochart  may  say,  have  probably 
disappeared  from  the  earth.  Where,  then,  is  the 
chain  ? 

Supposing  that  we  had  not  lost  some  species,  it  is 
evident  that  they  may  be  destroyed.  Lions  and 
rhinoceroses  are  becoming  very  scarce,  and  if  the 
rest  of  the  nations  had  imitated  the  English,  there 
would  not  now  have  been  a  wolf  left.  It  is  probable 
that  there  have  been  races  of  men  who  are  no  longer 
to  be  found.  Why  should  they  not  have  existed  as 
well  as  the  whites,  the  blacks,  the  Kaffirs,  to  whom 
nature  has  given  an  apron  of  their  own  skin,  hang- 
ing from  the  belly  to  the  middle  of  the  thigh ;  the 
Samoyeds,  whose  women  have  nipples  of  a  beautiful 
jet. 


Dictionary.  57 

Is  there  not  a  manifest  void  between  the  ape  and 
man  ?  Is  it  not  easy  to  imagine  a  two-legged  animal 
without  feathers  having  inteUigence  without  our 
shape  or  the  use  of  speech — one  which  we  could  tame, 
which  would  answer  our  signs,  and  serve  us?  And 
again,  between  this  species  and  man,  cannot  we 
imagine  others  ? 

Beyond  man,  divine  Plato,  you  place  in  heaven 
a  string  of  celestial  substances,  in  some  of  which  we 
believe  because  the  faith  so  teaches  us.  But  what 
reason  had  you  to  believe  in  them  ?  It  does  not  ap- 
pear that  you  had  spoken  with  the  genius  of  Soc- 
rates, and  though  Heres,  good  man,  rose  again  on 
purpose  to  tell  you  the  secrets  of  the  other  world,  he 
told  you  nothing  of  these  substances.  In  the  sen- 
sible universe  the  pretended  chain  is  no  less  inter- 
rupted. 

What  gradation,  I  pray  you,  is  there  among  the 
planets  ?  The  moon  is  forty  times  smaller  than  our 
globe.  Travelling  from  the  moon  through  space,  you 
find  Venus,  about  as  large  as  the  earth.  From  thence 
you  go  to  Mercury,  which  revolves  in  an  ellipsis  very 
different  from  the  circular  orbit  of  Venus ;  it  is 
twenty-seven  times  smaller  than  the  earth,  the  sun  is 
a  million  times  larger,  and  Mars  is  five  times  smaller. 
The  latter  goes  his  round  in  two  years,  his  neighbor 
Jupiter  in  twelve,  and  Saturn  in  thirty;  yet  Saturn, 
the  most  distant  of  all,  is  not  so  large  as  Jupiter. 
Where  is  the  pretended  gradation  ? 

And  then,  how,  in  so  many  empty  spaces,  do  you 


58  Philosophical 

extend  a  chain  connecting  the  whole?  There  can 
certainly  be  no  other  than  that  which  Newton  dis- 
covered— that  which  makes  all  the  globes  of  the  plan- 
etary world  gravitate  one  towards  another  in  the  im- 
mense void. 

Oh,  much  admired  Plato!  I  fear  that  you  have 
told  us  nothing  but  fables,  that  you  have  spoken  to 
us  only  as  a  sophist !  Oh,  Plato  !  you  have  done  more 
mischief  than  you  are  aware  of.  How  so?  vou  will 
ask.     I  will  not  tell  you. 

CHAIN  OR  GENERATION  OF  EVENTS. 

The  present,  we  say,  is  pregnant  with  the  future ; 
events  are  linked  one  with  another  by  an  invincible 
fatality.  This  is  the  fate  which,  in  Homer,  is  supe- 
rior to  Jupiter  himself.  The  master  of  gods  and  men 
expressly  declares  that  he  cannot  prevent  his  son 
Sarpedon  from  dying  at  the  time  appointed.  Sar- 
pedon  was  born  at  the  moment  when  it  was  neces- 
sary that  he  should  be  born,  and  could  not  be  born 
at  any  other ;  he  could  not  die  elsewhere  than  before 
Troy ;  he  could  not  be  buried  elsewhere  than  in 
Lycia  ;  his  body  must,  in  the  appointed  time,  produce 
vegetables,  which  must  change  into  the  substance  of 
some  of  the  Lycians ;  his  heirs  must  establish  a  new 
order  of  things  in  his  states ;  that  new  order  must 
influence  neighboring  kingdoms  ;  thence  must  result 
a  new  arrangement  in  war  and  in  peace  with  the 
neighbors  of  Lycia.  So  that,  from  link  to  link,  the 
destinv  of  the  whole  earth  depended  on  the  clone- 


Dictionary.  59 

ment  of  Helen,  which  had  a  necessary  connection 
with  the  marriage  of  Hecuba,  which,  ascending  to 
higher  events,  was  connected  with  the  origin  of 
things. 

Had  any  one  of  these  occurrences  been  ordered 
otherwise,  the  result  would  have  been  a  different 
universe.  Now,  it  was  not  possible  for  the  actual 
universe  not  to  exist ;  therefore  it  was  not  possible 
for  Jupiter,  Jove  as  he  was,  to  save  the  life  of  his 
son.  We  are  told  that  this  doctrine  of  necessity  and 
fatality  has  been  invented  in  our  own  times  by  Leib- 
nitz, under  the  name  of  sufficing  reason.  It  is,  how- 
ever, of  great  antiquity.  It  is  no  recent  discovery 
that  there  is  no  effect  without  a  cause  and  that  often 
the  smallest  cause  produces  the  greatest  effects. 

Lord  Bolingbroke  acknowledges  that  he  was  in- 
debted to  the  petty  quarrels  between  the  duchess  of 
Marlborough  and  Mrs.  Masham  for  an  opportunity 
of  concluding  the  private  treaty  between  Queen  Anne 
and  Louis  XIV.  This  treaty  led  to  the  peace  of 
LTtrecht ;  the  peace  of  Utrecht  secured  the  throne  of 
Spain  to  Philip  V. ;  Philip  took  Naples  and  Sicily 
from  the  house  of  Austria.  Thus  the  Spanish  prince, 
who  is  now  king  of  Naples,  evidently  owes  his  king- 
dom to  Mrs.  Masham;  he  would  not  have  had  it, 
nor  even  have  been  born,  if  the  duchess  of  Marlbor- 
ough had  been  more  complaisant  towards  the  queen 
of  England;  his  existence  at  Naples  depended  on 
one  folly  more  or  less  at  the  court  of  London. 

Examine   the   situations   of   every   people   upon 


6o  Philosophical 

earth ;  they  are  in  like  manner  founded  on  a  train  of 
occurrences  seemingly  without  connection,  but  all 
connected.  In  this  immense  machine  all  is  wheel, 
pulley,  cord,  or  spring.  It  is  the  same  in  physical 
order.  A  wind  blowing  from  the  southern  seas  and 
the  remotest  parts  of  Africa  brings  with  it  a  portion 
of  the  African  atmosphere,  which,  falling  in  showers 
in  the  valleys  of  the  Alps,  fertilizes  our  lands ;  on 
the  other  hand  our  north  wind  carries  our  vapors 
among  the  negroes ;  we  do  good  to  Guinea,  and 
Guinea  to  us.  The  chain  extends  from  one  end  of  the 
universe  to  the  other. 

But  the  truth  of  this  principle  seems  to  me  to  be 
strangely  abused;  for  it  is  thence  concluded  that 
there  is  no  atom,  however  small,  the  movement  of 
which  has  not  influenced  the  actual  arrangement  of 
the  whole  world ;  that  the  most  trivial  accident, 
whether  among  men  or  animals,  is  an  essential  link 
in  the  great  chain  of  destiny. 

Let  us  understand  one  another.  Every-  effect  evi- 
dently has  its  cause,  ascending  from  cause  to  cause, 
into  the  abyss  of  eternity ;  but  every  cause  has  not 
its  efifect,  going  down  to  the  end  of  ages.  I  grant 
that  all  events  are  produced  one  by  another ;  if  the 
past  was  pregnant  with  the  present,  the  present  is 
pregnant  with  the  future;  everything  is  begotten, 
but  everything  does  not  beget.  It  is  a  genealogical 
tree ;  every  house,  we  know,  ascends  to  Adam,  but 
many  of  the  family  have  died  without  issue. 

The  events  of  this  world  form  a  genealogical  tree. 


Dictionary.  6 1 

It  is  indisputable  that  the  inhabitants  of  Spain  and 
Gaul  are  descended  from  Gomer,  and  the  Russians 
from  his  younger  brother  JMagog,  for  in  how  many 
great  books  is  this  genealogy  to  be  found !  It  cannot 
then  be  denied  that  the  grand  Turk,  who  is  also  de- 
scended from  Magog,  is  obliged  to  him  for  the  good 
beating  given  him  in  1769  by  the  Empress  Catherine 
II.  This  occurrence  is  evidently  linked  with  other 
great  events ;  but  whether  Magog  spat  to  the  right 
or  to  the  left  near  Mount  Caucasus — made  two  or 
three  circles  in  a  well — or  whether  he  lay  on  his  right 
side  or  his  left,  I  do  not  see  that  it  could  have  much 
influence  on  present  affairs. 

It  must  be  remembered,  because  it  is  proved  by 
Newton,  that  nature  is  not  a  plenum,  and  that  motion 
is  not  communicated  by  collision  until  it  has  made 
the  tour  of  the  universe.  Throw  a  body  of  a  certain 
density  into  water,  you  easily  calculate  that  at  the 
end  of  such  a  time  the  movement  of  this  body,  and 
that  which  it  has  given  to  the  water,  will  cease ;  the 
motion  will  be  lost  and  rest  will  be  restored.  So  the 
motion  produced  by  Magog  in  spitting  into  a  well 
cannot  have  influenced  what  is  nov^r  passing  in  Mol- 
davia and  Wallachia.  Present  events,  then,  are  not 
the  offspring  of  all  past  events,  they  have  their  direct 
lines,  but  with  a  thousand  small  collateral  lines  they 
have  nothing  to  do.  Once  more  be  it  observed  that 
every  being  has  a  parent  but  every  one  has  not  an 
offspring. 


62  Philosophical 

CHANGES  THAT  HAVE  OCCURRED  IN  THE 
GLOBE. 

When  we  have  seen  with  our  own  eyes  a  moun- 
tain advancing  into  a  plain — that  is,  an  immense  rock 
detached  from  that  mountain,  and  covering  the  fields, 
an  entire  castle  buried  in  the  earth,  or  a  swallowed- 
up  river  bursting  from  below,  indubitable  marks  of 
an  immense  mass  of  water  having  once  inundated  a 
country  now  inhabited,  and  so  many  traces  of  other 
revolutions,  we  are  even  more  disposed  to  believe  in 
the  great  changes  that  have  altered  the  face  of  the 
world  than  a  Parisian  lady  who  knows  that  the 
square  in  which  her  house  stands  was  formerly  a 
cultivated  field,  but  a  lady  of  Naples  who  has  seen 
the  ruins  of  Herculaneum  underground  is  still  less 
enthralled  by  the  prejudice  which  leads  us  to  believe 
that  everything  has  always  been  as  it  now  is. 

Was  there  a  great  burning  of  the  world  in  the  time 
of  Phaethon  ?  Nothing  is  more  likely,  but  this  catas- 
trophe was  no  more  caused  by  the  ambition  of  Phae- 
thon or  the  anger  of  Jupiter  the  Thunderer  than  at 
Lisbon,  in  1755.  the  Divine  vengeance  v^-as  drawn 
down,  the  subterraneous  fires  kindled,  and  half  the 
city  destroyed  by  the  fires  so  often  lighted  there  by 
the  inquisition — besides,  we  know  that  Mequinez, 
Tetuan  and  considerable  hordes  of  Arabs  have  been 
treated  even  worse  than  Lisbon,  though  they  had  no 
inquisition.    The  island  of  St.  Domingo,  entirely  de- 


Dictionary  63 

vastatcd  iiot  long  ago,  had  no  more  displeased  the 
Great  Being  than  the  island  of  Corsica;  all  is  subject 
to  eternal  physical  laws. 

Sulphur,  bitumen,  nitre,  and  iron,  enclosed  within 
the  bowels  of  the  earth  have  overturned  many  a  city, 
opened  many  a  gulf,  and  we  are  constantly  liable  to 
these  accidents  attached  to  the  way  in  which  this 
globe  is  put  together,  just  as,  in  many  countries  dur- 
ing winter,  we  are  exposed  to  the  attacks  of  famish- 
ing wolves  and  tigers.  If  fire,  which  Heraclitus  be- 
lieved to  be  the  principle  of  all,  has  altered  the  face 
of  a  part  of  the  earth,  Thales's  first  principle,  water, 
has  operated  as  great  changes. 

One-half  of  America  is  still  inundated  by  the  an- 
cient overflowings  of  the  Maranon,  Rio  de  la  Plata, 
tlie  St.  Lawrence,  the  Mississippi,  and  all  the  rivers 
perpetually  swelled  by  the  eternal  snows  of  the  high- 
est mountains  in  the  world,  stretching  from  one  end 
of  that  continent  to  the  other.  These  accumulated 
floods  have  almost  everywhere  produced  vast 
marshes.  The  neighboring  lands  have  become  unin- 
habitable, and  the  earth,  which  the  hands  of  man 
should  have  made  fruitful,  has  produced  only  pesti- 
lence. 

The  same  thing  happened  in  China  and  in  Egypt : 
a  multitude  of  ages  were  necessary  to  dig  canals  and 
dry  the  lands.  Add  to  these  lengthened  disasters  the 
irruptions  of  the  sea,  the  lands  it  has  invaded  and  de- 
serted, the  islands  it  has  detached  from  the  continent 
and  you  will  find  that  from  east  to  west,  from  Japan 


64  Philosophical 

to  Mount  Atlas,  it  has  devastated  more  than  eighty 
thousand  square  leagues. 

The  swallowing  up  of  the  island  Atlantis  from 
the  ocean  may,  with  as  much  reason,  be  considered 
historical,  as  fabulous.  The  shallowness  of  the  At- 
lantic as  far  as  the  Canaries  might  be  taken  as  a  proof 
of  this  great  event  and  the  Canaries  themselves  for 
fragments  of  the  island  Atlantis. 

Plato  tell.«.  us  in  his  "Timceus,"  that  the  Egyptian 
priests,  among  whom  he  had  travelled,  had  in  their 
possession  ancient  registers  which  certified  that  is- 
land's going  under  water.  Plato  says  that  this  catas- 
trophe happened  nine  thousand  years  before  his  time. 
No  one  will  believe  this  chronology  on  Plato's  word 
only,  but  neither  can  any  one  adduce  against  it  any 
physical  proof,  nor  even  a  historical  testimony  from 
any  profane  writer. 

Pliny,  in  his  third  book,  says  that  from  time  im- 
memorial the  people  of  the  southern  coasts  of  Spain 
believed  that  the  sea  had  forced  a  passage  between 
Calpe  and  Abila :  "Indigence  columnas  HercuUs  va- 
cant,  creduntque  per  fossas  exclusa  antea  admisisse 
maria,  et  rerum  naturcu  mutasse  faciem." 

An  attentive  traveller  may  convince  himself  by  his 
own  eyes  that  the  Cyclades  and  the  Sporades  were 
once  part  of  the  continent  of  Greece,  and  especially 
that  Sicily  was  once  joined  to  Apulia.  The  two 
volcanos  of  Etna  and  Vesuvius  having  the  same  basis 
in  the  sea,  the  little  gulf  of  Charybdis,  the  only  deep 


Dictionary.  65 

part  of  that  sea,  the  perfect  resemblance  of  the  two 
soils  are  incontrovertible  testimonies.  The  floods  of 
Deucalion  and  Ogyges  are  well  known,  and  the 
fables  founded  upon  this  truth  are  still  more  the  talk 
of  all  the  West. 

The  ancients  have  mentioned  several  deluges  in 
Asia.  The  one  spoken  of  by  Berosus  happened  (as 
he  tells  us)  in.  Chaldsea,  about  four  thousand  three, 
or  four  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era,  and 
Asia  was  as  much  inundated  with  fables  about  this 
deluge  as  it  was  by  the  overflowings  of  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates,  and  all  the  rivers  that  fall  into  the 
Euxine. 

It  is  true  that  such  overflowings  cannot  cover  the 
country  with  more  than  a  few  feet  of  water,  but  the 
consequent  sterility,  the  washing  away  of  houses,  and 
the  destruction  of  cattle  are  losses  which  it  requires 
nearly  a  century  to  repair.  We  know  how  much 
they  have  cost  Holland,  more  than  the  half  of  which 
has  been  lost  since  the  year  1050.  She  is  still  obliged 
to  maintain  a  daily  conflict  with  the  ever-threatening 
ocean.  She  has  never  employed  so  many  soldiers  in 
resisting  her  enemies  as  she  employs  laborers  in  con- 
tinually defending  her  against  the  assaults  of  a  sea 
always  ready  to  swallow  her. 

The  road  from  Egypt  to  Phoenicia,  along  the  bor- 
ders of  Lake  Serbo,  was  once  quite  practicable,  but 
it  has  long  ceased  to  be  so ;  it  is  now  nothing  but  a 

quicksand,  moistened  by  stagnant  water.    In  short,  a 
Vol.  7-5 


66  Philosophical 

great  portion  of  the  earth  would  be  no  other  than  a 
vast  poisonous  marsh  inhabited  by  monsters,  but  for 
the  assiduous  labor  of  the  human  race. 

We  shall  not  here  speak  of  the  universal  deluge 
of  Noah.  Let  it  suffice  to  read  the  Holy  Scriptures 
with  submission.  Noah's  flood  was  an  incomprehen- 
sible miracle  supernaturally  worked  by  the  justice 
and  goodness  of  an  inefifable  Providence  whose  will 
it  was  to  destroy  the  whole  guilty  human  race  and 
form  a  new  and  innocent  race.  If  the  new  race  was 
more  wicked  than  the  former,  and  became  more  crim- 
inal from  age  to  age,  from  reformation  to  reforma- 
tion, this  is  but  another  effect  of  the  same  Provi- 
dence, of  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  fathom  the 
depths,  the  inconceivable  mysteries  transmitted  to  the 
nations  of  the  West  for  many  ages,  in  the  Latin 
translation  of  the  Septuagint.  We  shall  never  enter 
these  awful  sanctuaries ;  our  questions  will  be  lim- 
ited to  simple  nature. 

CHARACTER. 

[From  the  Greek  word  signifying  Impression,  Engraving. — 
It  is  what  nature  has  engraved  in  us.] 

Can  we  change  our  character  ?  Yes,  if  we  change 
our  body.  A  man  born  turbulent,  violent,  and  in- 
flexible, may,  through  falling  in  his  old  age  into  an 
apoplexy,  become,  like  a  silly,  weak,  timid,  puling 
child.  His  body  is  no  longer  the  same,  but  so  long 
as  his  nerves,  his  blood,  and  his  marrow  remain  in 
the  same  state  his  disposition  will  not  change  any 
more  than  the  instinct  of  a  wolf  or  a  polecat.    The 


Dictionary.  67 

Englisli  author  of  "The  Dispensary/'  a  poem  much 
superior  to  the  Itahan  "Capitoli,"  and  perhaps  even 
to  Boileau's  "Liitrin,"  has,  as  it  seems  to  me,  well 
observed. 

How  maUer,  by  the  varied  shape  of  pores, 
Or  idiots  frames,  or  solemn  senators. 

The  character  is  formed  of  our  ideas  and  our  feel- 
ings. Now  it  is  quite  clear  that  we  neither  give  our- 
selves feelings  nor  ideas,  therefore  our  character  can- 
not depend  on  ourselves.  If  it  did  so  depend,  every- 
one would  be  perfect.  We  cannot  give  ourselves 
tastes,  nor  talents,  why,  then,  should  we  give  our- 
selves qualities?  When  we  do  not  reflect  we  think 
we  are  masters  of  all :  when  we  reflect  we  find  that 
we  are  masters  of  nothing. 

If  you  would  absolutely  change  a  man's  character 
purge  him  with  diluents  till  he  is  dead.  Charles 
XII.,  in  his  illness  on  the  way  to  Bender,  was  no 
longer  the  same  man ;  he  was  as  tractable  as  a  child. 
If  I  have  a  wry  nose  and  cat's  eyes  I  can  hide  them 
behind  a  mask,  and  can  I  do  more  with  the  character 
that  nature  has  given  me  ? 

A  man  born  violent  and  passionate  presents  him- 
self before  Francis  I.,  king  of  France,  to  complain  of 
a  trespass.  The  countenance  of  the  prince,  the  re- 
spectful behavior  of  the  courtiers,  the  very  place  he 
is  in  make  a  powerful  impression  upon  this  man.  He 
mechanically  casts  down  his  eyes,  his  rude  voice  is 
softened,  he  presents  his  petition  with  humility,  you 
would  think  him  as  mild  as  (at  that  moment  at  least) 


68  Philosophical 

the  courtiers  appear  to  be,  among  whom  he  is  often 
disconcerted,  but  if  Francis  I.  knows  anything  of 
physiognomy,  he  will  easily  discover  in  his  eye, 
though  downcast,  glistening  with  a  sullen  fire,  in  the 
extended  muscles  of  his  face,  in  his  fast-closed  lips, 
that  this  man  is  not  so  mild  as  he  is  forced  to  appear. 
The  same  man  follows  him  to  Pavia,  is  taken  pris- 
oner along  with  him  and  thrown  into  the  same  dun- 
geon at  Madrid.  The  majesty  of  Francis  I.  no 
longer  awes  him  as  before,  he  becomes  familiar  with 
the  object  of  his  reverence.  One  day,  pulling  on  the 
king's  boots,  and  happening  to  pull  them  on  ill,  the 
king,  soured  by  misfortune,  grows  angry,  on  which 
our  man  of  courtesy  wishes  his  majesty  at  the  devil 
and  throws  his  boots  out  the  window. 

Sixtus  V.  was  by  nature  petulant,  obstinate, 
haughty,  impetuous,  vindictive,  arrogant.  This  char- 
acter, however,  seems  to  have  been  softened  by  the 
trials  of  his  novitiate.  But  see  him  beginning  to  ac- 
quire some  influence  in  his  order;  he  flies  into  a 
passion  against  a  guardian  and  knocks  him  down. 
Behold  him  an  inquisitor  at  Venice,  he  exercises  his 
office  with  insolence.  Behold  him  cardinal ;  he  is 
possessed  della  rabbia  papale;  this  rage  triumphs 
over  his  natural  propensities ;  he  buries  his  person 
and  his  character  in  obscurity  and  counterfeits  hu- 
mility and  infirmity.  He  is  elected  pope,  and  the 
spring  which  policy  had  held  back  now  acts  with  all 
the  force  of  its  long-restrained  elasticity;  he  is  the 
proudest  and  most  despotic  of  sovereigns. 


Dictionary.  69 

Naturam  expellas  furea,  tamen  usque  recurret. 
Howe'er  expelled,  nature  will  still  return. 

Religion  and  morality  curb  the  strength  of  the 
disposition,  but  they  cannot  destroy  it.  The  drunk- 
ard in  a  cloister,  reduced  to  a  quarter  of  a  pint  of 
cider  each  meal  will  never  more  get  drunk,  but  he 
will  always  be  fond  of  wine. 

Age  weakens  the  character;  it  is  as  an  old  tree 
producing  only  a  few  degenerate  fruits,  but  always 
of  the  same  nature,  which  is  covered  with  knots  and 
moss  and  becomes  worm-eaten,  but  is  ever  the  same, 
w^hether  oak  or  pear  tree.  If  we  could  change  our 
character  we  could  give  ourselves  one  and  become 
the  master  of  nature.  Can  we  give  ourselves  any- 
thing? do  not  we  receive  everything?  To  strive  to 
animate  the  indolent  man  with  persevering  activity, 
to  freeze  with  apathy  the  boiling  blood  of  the  impet- 
uous, to  inspire  a  taste  for  poetry  into  him  who  has 
neither  taste  nor  ear  were  as  futile  as  to  attempt  to 
give  sight  to  one  born  blind.  We  perfect,  we  amelior- 
ate, we  conceal  what  nature  has  placed  in  us,  but  we 
place  nothing  there  ourselves. 

An  agriculturist  is  told :  "You  have  too  many 
fish  in  this  pond ;  they  will  not  thrive,  here  are  too 
many  cattle  in  your  meadows ;  they  will  want  grass 
and  grow  lean."  After  this  exhortation  the  pikes 
come  and  eat  one-half  this  man's  carps,  the  wolves 
one-half  of  his  sheep,  and  the  rest  fatten.  And  will 
you  applaud  his  economy?  This  countryman  is 
yourself ;  one  of  your  passions  devours  the  rest  and 


yo  Philosophical 

you  think  you  have  gained  a  triumph.  Do  we  not 
almost  all  resemble  the  old  general  of  ninety,  who, 
having  found  some  young  officers  behaving  in  a 
rather  disorderly  manner  with  some  young  women, 
said  to  them  in  anger:  "Gentlemen,  is  this  the  ex- 
ample that  I  set  you  ?" 

CHARITY. 

CHARITABLE  AND  BENEFICENT  INSTITUTIONS,  ALMS- 
HOUSES, HOSPITALS,  ETC. 

Cicero  frequently  speaks  of  universal  charity, 
charitas  Iiuinaiii  generis;  but  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  policy  or  the  beneficence  of  the  Romans  ever 
induced  them  to  establish  charitable  institutions,  in 
which  the  indigent  and  the  sick  might  be  relieved  at 
the  expense  of  the  public.  There  was  a  receptacle 
for  strangers  at  the  port  of  Ostia,  called  Xenodok- 
ium,  St.  Jerome  renders  this  justice  to  the  Romans. 
Almshouses  seem  to  have  been  unknown  in  ancient 
Rome.  A  more  noble  usage  prevailed — that  of  sup- 
plying the  people  with  corn.  There  were  in  Rome 
three  hundred  and  twenty-seven  public  granaries. 
This  constant  liberality  precluded  any  need  of  alms- 
houses.    They  were  strangers  to  necessity. 

Neither  was  there  any  occasion  among  the  Ro- 
mans for  founding  charities.  None  exposed  their 
own  children.  Those  of  slaves  were  taken  care  of 
by  their  masters.  Childbirth  was  not  deemed  dis- 
graceful to  the  daughters  of  citizens.  The  poorest 
families,  maintained  by  the  republic  and  afterwards 


Dictionary.  ji 

by  the  emperors,  saw  the  subsistence  of  their  chil- 
dren secured. 

The  expression,  "charitable  establishment,"  ;nauon 
de  charite,  implies  a  state  of  indigence  among  mod- 
ern nations  which  the  form  of  our  governments  has 
not  been  able  to  preclude. 

The  word  "hospital,"  which  recalls  that  of  hospi- 
tality, reminds  us  of  a  virtue  in  high  estimation 
among  the  Greeks,  now  no  longer  existing ;  but  it  also 
expresses  a  virtue  far  superior.  There  is  a  mighty 
difference  between  lodging,  maintaining,  and  provid- 
ing in  sickness  for  all  afflicted  applicants  whatever, 
and  entertaining  in  your  own  house  two  or  three 
travellers  by  whom  you  might  claim  a  right  to  be 
entertained  in  return.  Hospitality,  after  all,  was 
but  an  exchange.  Hospitals  are  monuments  of 
beneficence. 

It  is  true  that  the  Greeks  were  acquainted  with 
charitable  institutions  under  the  name  of  Xcnodokia, 
for  strangers,  Nosocomeia,  for  the  sick,  and  Ptokiu, 
for  the  indigent.  In  Diogenes  Laertius,  concerning 
Bion,  we  find  this  passage:  "He  sufifered  much  from 
the  indigence  of  those  who  were  charged  with  the 
care  of  the  sick." 

Hospitality  among  friends  was  called  Idioxenia, 
and  among  strangers  Proxenia.  Hence,  the  person 
who  received  and  entertained  strangers  in  his  house, 
in  the  name  of  the  whole  city,  was  called  Proxenos. 
But  this  institution  appears  to  have  been  exceedingly 
rare.    At  the  present  day  there  is  scarcely  a  city  in 


72  Philosophical 

Europe  without  its  hospitals.  The  Turks  have  them 
even  for  beasts,  which  seems  to  be  carrying  charity 
rather  too  far,  it  would  be  better  to  forget  the  beasts 
and  think  more  about  men. 

This  prodigious  multitude  of  charitable  establish- 
ments clearly  proves  a  truth  deserving  of  all  our  at- 
tention— that  man  is  not  so  depraved  as  he  is  stated 
to  be,  and  that,  notwithstanding  all  his  absurd  opin- 
ions, notwithstanding  all  the  hOrrors  of  war  which 
transform  him  into  a  ferocious  beast,  we  have  reason 
to  consider  him  as  a  creature  naturally  well  disposed 
and  kind,  and  who,  like  other  animals,  becomes 
vicious  only  in  proportion  as  he  is  stung  by  provoca- 
tion. 

The  misfortune  is  that  he  is  provoked  too  often. 

Modern  Rome  has  almost  as  many  charitable  in- 
stitutions as  ancient  Rome  had  triumphal  arches  and 
other  monuments  of  conquest.  The  most  consider- 
able of  them  all  is  a  bank  which  lends  money  at  two 
per  cent,  upon  pledge,  and  sells  the  property  if  the 
borrower  does  not  redeem  it  by  an  appointed  time. 
This  establishment  is  called  the  Archiospedale,  or 
chief  hospital.  It  is  said  always  to  contain  within  its 
walls  nearly  two  thousand  sick,  which  would  be 
about  the  fiftieth  part  of  the  population  of  Rome  for 
this  one  house  alone,  without  including  the  children 
brought  up,  and  the  pilgrims  lodged  there.  Where  are 
the  computations  which  do  not  require  abatement? 

Has  it  not  been  actually  published  at  Rome  that 
the  hospital  of  the  Trinity  had  lodged  and  maintained 


Dictionary.  73 

for  three  days  four  hundred  and  forty  thousand  five 
hundred  male  and  twenty-five  thousand  female  pil- 
grims at  the  jubilee  in  1600?  Has  not  Misson  him- 
self told  us  that  the  hospital  of  the  Annunciation  at 
Naples  possesses  a  rental  of  two  millions  in  our 
money?     (About  four  hundred  thousand  dollars.) 

However,  to  return,  perhaps  a  charitable  establish- 
ment for  pilgrims  who  are  generally  mere  vagabonds, 
is  rather  an  encouragement  to  idleness  than  an  act 
of  humanity.  It  is,  however,  a  decisive  evidence 
of  humanity  that  Rome  contains  fifty  charitable  es- 
tablishments including  all  descriptions.  These 
beneficent  institutions  are  quite  as  useful  and  re- 
spectable as  the  riches  of  some  monasteries  and 
chapels  are  useless  and  ridiculous. 

To  dispense  food,  clothing,  medicine,  and  aid  of 
every  kind,  to  our  brethren,  is  truly  meritorious,  but 
what  need  can  a  saint  have  of  gold  and  diamonds? 
What  benefit  results  to  mankind  from  "our  Lady  of 
Loretto"  possessing  more  gorgeous  treasures  than 
the  Turkish  sultan?  Loretto  is  a  house  of  vanity, 
and  not  of  charity.  London,  reckoning  its  charity 
schools,  has  as  many  beneficent  establishments  as 
Rome. 

The  most  beautiful  monument  of  beneficence  ever 
erected  is  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  founded  by  Louis 
XIV. 

Of  all  hospitals,  that  in  which  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  indigent  sick  are  daily  received  is  the  Hotel 
Dieu  of  Paris.     It  frequently  contains  four  or  five 


74  Philosophical 

thousand  inmates  at  a  time.  It  is  at  once  the  recepta- 
cle of  all  the  dreadful  ills  to  which  mankind  are  sub- 
ject and  the  temple  of  true  virtue,  which  consists  in 
relieving  them. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  frequently  drawing  a 
contrast  between  a  fete  at  Versailles  or  an  opera  at 
Paris,  in  which  all  the  pleasures  and  all  the  splendors 
of  life  are  combined  with  the  most  exquisite  art,  and 
a  Hotel  Dieu,  where  all  that  is  painful,  all  that  is 
loathsome,  and  even  death  itself  are  accumulated  in 
one  mass  of  horror.  Such  is  the  composition  of  great 
cities !  By  an  admirable  policy  pleasures  and  luxury 
are  rendered  subservient  to  misery  and  pain.  The 
theatres  of  Paris  pay  on  an  average  the  yearly  sum 
of  a  hundred  thousand  crowns  to  the  hospital.  It 
often  happens  in  these  charitable  institutions  that  the 
inconveniences  counterbalance  the  advantages.  One 
proof  of  the  abuses  attached  to  them  is  that  patients 
dread  the  very  idea  of  being  removed  to  them. 

The  Hotel  Dieu,  for  example,  was  formerly  well 
situated,  in  the  middle  of  the  city,  near  the  bishop's 
palace.  The  situation  now  is  very  bad,  for  the  city 
has  become  overgrown ;  four  or  five  patients  are 
crowded  into  every  bed,  the  victim  of  scurvy  com- 
municates it  to  his  neighbor  and  in  return  receives 
from  him  smallpox,  and  a  pestilential  atmosphere 
spreads  incurable  disease  and  death,  not  only  through 
the  building  destined  to  restore  men  to  healthful  life 
but  through  a  great  part  of  the  city  which  surrounds 
it. 


Dictionary.  75 

M.  de  Chamousset,  one  of  the  most  valuable  and 
active  of  citizens,  has  computed,  from  accurate  au- 
thorities, that  in  the  Hotel  Dieu,  a  fourth  part  of  the 
patients  die,  an  eighth  in  the  hospital  of  Charity,  a 
ninth  in  the  London  hospitals,  and  a  thirtieth  in  those 
of  Versailles.  In  the  great  and  celebrated  hospital  of 
Lyons,  which  has  long  been  one  of  the  best  conducted 
in  Europe,  the  average  mortality  has  been  found  to 
be  only  one-fifteenth.  It  has  been  often  proposed  to 
divide  the  Hotel  Dieu  of  Paris  into  smaller  establish- 
ments better  situated,  more  airy,  and  salubrious,  but 
money  has  been  wanting  to  carry  the  plan  into  exe- 
cution. 

Curiae  nescio  quid  setnper  abest  rei. 

Money  is  always  to  be  found  when  men  are  to  be 
sent  to  the  frontiers  to  be  destroyed,  but  when  the  ob- 
ject is  to  preserve  them  it  is  no  longer  so.  Yet  the 
Hotel  Dieu  of  Paris  has  a  revenue  amounting  to 
more  than  a  million  (forty  thousand  pounds),  and 
every  day  increasing,  and  the  Parisians  have  rivalled 
each  other  in  their  endowments  of  it. 

We  cannot  help  remarking  in  this  place  that  Ger- 
main Brice,  in  his  "Description  of  Paris,"  speaking 
of  some  legacies  bequeathed  by  the  first  president, 
Bellievre,  to  the  hall  of  the  Hotel  Dieu,  named  St. 
Charles,  says  :  "Every  one  ought  to  read  the  beauti- 
ful inscription,  engraved  in  letters  of  gold  on  a  grand 
marble  tablet,  and  composed  by  Oliver  Patru,  one  of 
the  choicest  spirits  of  his  time,  some  of  whose  plead- 
ings are  extant  and  in  very  high  esteem. 


76  Philosophical 

"Whoever  thou  art  that  enterest  this  sacred  place 
thou  wilt  almost  everywhere  behold  traces  of  the 
charity  of  the  great  Pomponne.  The  gold  and  silver 
tapestry  and  the  exquisite  furniture  which  formerly 
adorned  his  apartments  are  now,  by  a  happy  meta- 
morphosis, made  to  minister  to  the  necessities  of  the 
sick.  That  divine  man,  who  was  the  ornament  and 
delight  of  his  age,  even  in  his  conflict  with  death,  con- 
sidered how  he  might  relieve  the  afflicted. ,  The 
blood  of  Bellievre  was  manifested  in  every  action  of 
his  life.  The  glory  of  his  embassies  is  full  well 
known,"  etc. 

The  useful  Chamousset  did  better  than  Germain 
Brice,  or  than  Oliver  Patru,  "one  of  the  choicest 
spirits  of  his  time."  He  offered  to  undertake  at  his 
own  expense,  backed  by  a  responsible  company,  the 
following  contract : 

The  administrators  of  the  Hotel  Dieu  estimated 
the  cost  of  every  patient,  whether  killed  or  cured,  at 
fifty  livres.  M.  Chamousset  and  the  company  offered 
to  undertake  the  business,  on  receiving  fifty  livres 
on  recovery  only.  The  deaths  were  to  be  thrown  out 
of  the  account,  of  which  the  expenses  were  to  be 
borne  by  himself. 

The  proposal  was  so  very  advantageous  that  it 
was  not  accepted.  It  was  feared  that  he  would  not  be 
able  to  accomplish  it.  Every  abuse  attempted  to  be 
reformed  is  the  patrimony  of  those  who  have  more 
influence  than  the  reformers. 

A  circumstance  no  less  singular  is  that  the  Hotel 


Dictionary.  77 

Dieu  alone  has  the  privilege  of  selling  meat  in  Lent, 
for  its  own  advantage  and  it  loses  money  thereby. 
M.  Chamousset  proposed  to  enter  into  a  contract  by 
which  the  establishment  would  gain;  his  offer  was 
rejected  and  the  butcher,  who  was  thought  to  have 
suggested  it  to  him,  was  dismissed. 

Ainsi  chez  les  humains,  par  un  abus  fatal, 
Le  bien  le  phcs  parfait  est  la  source  du  mal. 

Thus  serious  ill,  if  tainted  by  abuse, 

The  noblest  works  of  man  will  oft  produce. 

CHARLES  IX. 

Charles  IX,,  king  of  France,  was,  we  are  told, 
a  good  poet.  It  is  quite  certain  that  while  he  lived 
his  verses  were  admired.  Brantome  does  not,  in- 
deed, tell  us  that  this  king  was  the  best  poet  in  Eu- 
rope, but  he  assures  us  that  "he  made  very  genteel 
quatrains  impromptu,  without  thinking  (for  he  had 
seen  several  of  them),  and  when  it  was  w^et  or 
gloomy  weather,  or  very  hot,  he  would  send  for  the 
poets  into  his  cabinet  and  pass  his  time  there  with 
them." 

Had  he  always  passed  his  time  thus,  and,  above 
all,  had  he  made  good  verses,  we  should  not  have 
had  a  St.  Bartholomew,  he  would  not  have  fired  with 
a  carbine  through  his  window  upon  his  own  sub- 
jects, as  if  they  had  been  a  covey  of  partridges.  Is  it 
not  impossible  for  a  good  poet  to  be  a  barbarian  ?  I 
am  persuaded  it  is. 

These  lines,  addressed  in  his  name  to  Ronsard, 
have  been  attributed  to  him : 


yS  Philosophical 

La  lyre,  qui  ravit  par  de  si  doux  accords, 
Te  soxwiets  les  esprits  dont  je  ji'ai  qtte  les  corps; 
Le  tnaitre  eUe  feii  rend,  et  te  fait  introduire 
Oil  le  pbis  ficr  tyran  ne  pent  avoir  d'e7npire. 

The  lyre's  delightful  softly  swelling  lay 
Subdues  the  mind,  I  but  the  body  sway; 
Make  thee  its  master,  thy  sweet  art  can  bind 
What  haughty  tyrants  cannot  rule — the  mind. 

These  lines  are  good.    But  are  they  his  ?    Are  they 

not  his  preceptor's?     Here  are  some  of  his  royal 

imaginings,  which  are  somewhat  different : 

Ilfaut  suivre  ton  roi  qui  fainie  Par  sur  tons 
Pour  les  vers  qui  de  toi  coule7it  braves  et  doux ; 
Et  crois,  si  ttc  ne  viens  me  trouver  a  Pontoise, 
Qti  entre  nous  adviendra  utie  tres-grande  noise. 

Know,  thou  must  follow  close  thy  king,  who  oft 
Hath  heard,  and  loves  thee  for,  thy  verse  so  soft; 
Unless  thou  come  and  meet  me  at  Pontoise, 
Believe  me,  I  shall  make  no  little  noise. 

These  are  worthy  the  author  of  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  Caesar's  lines  on  Terence  are 
written  with  rather  more  spirit  and  taste ;  they 
breathe  Roman  urbanity.  In  those  of  Francis  I.  and 
Charles  IX.  we  find  the  barbarism  of  the  Celts. 
Would  to  God  that  Charles  IX.  had  written  more 
verses,  even  though  bad  ones !  For  constant  appli- 
cation to  the  fine  arts  softens  the  manners  and  dis- 
pels ferocity : 

Emollit  mores,  nee  sinit  esse  feros. 

Besides,  the  French  languages  scarcely  began  to 
take  any  form  until  long  after  Charles  IX.  See  such 
of  Francis  I.'s  letters  as  have  been  preserved :  "Tout 
est  perdu  Iwrs  I'lioiuienr" — "All  is  lost  save  honor" 
— was  worthy  of  a  chevalier.  But  the  following  is 
neither  in  the  stvle  of  Cicero  nor  in  that  of  Cssar : 


(*--,-• 


Dictionary.  79 

"Tout  a  fteure  ynsi  que  je  me  volois  mettre  0  lit 
est  arrive  Laval  qui  m'a  aporte  la  sertenete  du  leve- 
ment  du  siege." 

"All  was  going  so  well  that,  when  I  was  going  to 
bed  Laval  arrived,  and  brought  me  the  certainty  of 
the  siege  being  raised." 

We  have  letters  from  the  hand  of  Louis  XIIL, 
which  are  no  better  written.  It  is  not  required  of  a 
king  to  write  letters  like  Pliny,  or  verses  like  Virgil ; 
but  no  one  can  be  excused  from  expressing  himself 
with  propriety  in  his  own  tongue.  Every  prince  that 
writes  like  a  lady's  maid  has  been  ill  educated. 

CHINA. 

SECTION    I. 

We  have  frequently  observed  elsewhere,  how 
rash  and  injudicious  it  is  to  controvert  with  any 
nation,  such  as  the  Chinese,  its  authentic  pretensions. 
There  is  no  house  in  Europe,  the  antiquity  of  which 
is  so  well  proved  as  that  of  the  Empire  of  China.  Let 
us  figure  to  ourselves  a  learned  Maronite  of  Mount 
Athos  questioning  the  nobility  of  the  Morozini,  the 
Tiepolo,  and  other  ancient  houses  of  Venice ;  of  the 
princes  of  Germany,  of  the  Montmorencys,  the  Chat- 
illons,  or  the  Talleyrands,  of  France,  under  the  pre- 
tence that  they  are  not  mentioned  in  St.  Thomas,  or 
St.  Bonaventure.  We  must  impeach  either  his  sense 
or  his  sincerity. 

Many  of  the  learned  of  our  northern  climes  have 
felt  confounded  at  the  antiquity  claimed  by  the  Chi- 


8o  Philosophical 

nese.  The  question,  however,  is  not  one  of  learning. 
Leaving  all  the  Chinese  literati,  all  the  mandarins, 
all  the  emperors,  to  acknowledge  Fo-hi  as  one  of  the 
first  who  gave  laws  to  China,  about  two  thousand 
five  hundred  years  before  our  vulgar  era ;  admit  that 
there  must  be  people  before  there  are  kings.  Allow 
that  a  long  period  of  time  is  necessary  before  a  nu- 
merous people,  having  discovered  the  necessary  arts 
of  life,  unite  in  the  choice  of  a  common  governor. 
But  if  you  do  not  make  these  admissions,  it  is  not  of 
the  slightest  consequence.  Whether  you  agree  with 
us  or  not,  we  shall  always  believe  that  two  and  two 
make  four. 

In  a  western  province,  formerly  called  Celtica, 
the  love  of  singularity  and  paradox  has  been  carried 
so  far  as  to  induce  some  to  assert  that  the  Chinese 
were  only  an  Egyptian,  or  rather  perhaps  a  Phoenic'- 
ian  colony.  It  was  attempted  to  prove,  in  the  same 
way  as  a  thousand  other  things  have  been  proved, 
that  a  king  of  Egypt,  called  Menes  by  the  Greeks, 
was  the  Chinese  King  Yu ;  and  that  Atoes  was  Ki, 
by  the  change  of  certain  letters.  In  addition  to 
which,  the  following  is  a  specimen  of  the  reasoning 
applied  to  the  subject : 

The  Egyptians  sometimes  lighted  torches  at  night. 
The  Chinese  light  lanterns :  the  Chinese  are.  there- 
fore, evidently  a  colony  from  Egypt.  The  Jesuit 
Parennin  who  had,  at  the  time,  resided  five  and 
twenty  years  in  China,  and  was  master  both  of  its 
language  and  its  sciences,  has  rejected  all  these  fan- 


Dictionary.  8 1 

cies  with  a  happy  mixture  of  elegance  and  sarcasm. 
All  the  missionaries,  and  all  the  Chinese,  on  receiving 
the  intelligence  that  a  country  in  the  extremity  of 
the  west  was  developing  a  new  formation  of  the  Chi- 
nese Empire,  treated  it  with  a  contemptuous  ridicule. 
Father  Parennin  replied  with  somewhat  more  seri- 
ousness :  "Your  Egyptians,"  said  he,  "when  going 
to  people  China,  must  evidently  have  passed  through 
India."  Was  India  at  that  time  peopled  or  not?  If 
it  was,  would  it  permit  a  foreign  army  to  pass 
through  it  ?  If  it  was  not,  would  not  the  Egyptians 
have  stopped  in  India?  Would  they  have  continued 
their  journey  through  barren  deserts,  and  over  al- 
most impracticable  mountains,  till  they  reached 
China,  in  order  to  form  colonies  there,  when  they 
might  so  easily  have  established  them  on  the  fertile 
banks  of  the  Indus  or  the  Ganges  ? 

The  compilers  of  a  universal  history,  printed  in 
England,  have  also  shown  a  disposition  to  divest  the 
Chinese  of  their  antiquity,  because  the  Jesuits  were 
the  first  who  made  the  world  acquainted  with  China. 
This  is  unquestionably  a  very  satisfactory  reason  for 
saying  to  a  whole  nation — "You  are  liars." 

It  appears  to  me  a  very  important  reflection, 
which  may  be  made  on  the  testimony  given  by  Con- 
fucius, to  the  antiquity  of  his  nation ;  and  which  is, 
that  Confucius  had  no  interest  in  falsehood :  he  did 
not  pretend  to  be  a  prophet ;  he  claimed  no  inspira- 
tion :  he  taught  no  new  religion ;  he  used  no  delu- 
sions; flattered  not  the  emperor  under  whom  he 
Vol.  7—6 


82  Philosophical 

lived  :  he  did  not  even  mention  him.    In  short,  he  is 

the  only  founder  of  institutions  among  mankind  who 

was  not  followed  by  a  train  of  women. 

I  knew^  a  philosopher  who  had  no  other  portrait 

than  that  of  Confucius  in  his  study.    At  the  bottom 

of  it  were  written  the  following  lines : 

Without  assumption  he  explored  the  mind, 
Unveiled  the  light  of  reason  to  mankind; 
Spoke  as  a  sage,  and  never  as  a  seer, 
Yet,  strange  to  say,  his  country  held  him  dear. 

I  have  read  his  books  with  attention  ;  I  have  made 
extracts  from  them ;  I  have  found  in  them  nothing 
but  the  purest  morality,  without  the  slightest  tinge 
of  charlatanism.  He  lived  six  hundred  years  before 
our  vulgar  era.  His  works  were  commented  on  by 
the  most  learned  men  of  the  nation.  If  he  had  falsi- 
fied, if  he  had  introduced  a  false  chronology,  if  he 
had  written  of  emperors  who  never  existed,  would 
not  some  one  have  been  found,  in  a  learned  nation, 
who  would  have  reformed  his  chronology?  One 
Chinese  only  has  chosen  to  contradict  him,  and  he 
met  with  universal  execration. 

Were  it  worth  our  while,  we  might  here  compare 
the  great  wall  of  China  with  the  monuments  of  other 
nations,  which  have  never  even  approached  it ;  and 
remark,  that,  in  comparison  with  this  extensive  work, 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt  are  only  puerile  and  useless 
masses.  We  might  dwell  on  the  thirty-two  eclipses 
calculated  in  the  ancient  chronology  of  China,  twen- 
ty-eight of  which  have  been  verified  by  the  mathema- 
ticians of  Europe.    We  might  show,  that  the  respect 


Dictionary.  83 

entertained  by  the  Chinese  for  their  ancestors  is  an 
evidence  that  such  ancestors  have  existed;  and  re- 
peat the  observation,  so  often  made,  that  this  rever- 
ential respect  has  in  so  small  degree  impeded,  among 
this  people,  the  progress  of  natural  philosophy, 
geometry,  and  astronomy. 

It  is  sufficiently  known,  that  they  are,  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  what  we  all  were  three  hundred  years  ago, 
very  ignorant  reasoners.  The  most  learned  Chinese 
is  like  one  of  the  learned  of  Europe  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  in  possession  of  his  Aristotle.  But  it  is  pos- 
sible to  be  a  very  bad  natural  philosopher,  and  at  the 
same  time  an  excellent  moralist.  It  is,  in  fact,  in' 
morality,  in  political  economy,  in  agriculture,  in  the 
necessary  arts  of  life,  that  the  Chinese  have  made 
such  advances  towards  perfection.  All  the  rest  they 
liave  been  taught  by  us  :  in  these  we  might  well  sub- 
mit to  become  their  disciples. 

Of  the  Expulsion  of  the  Missionaries  from  China. 

Humanly  speaking,  independently  of  the  service 
which  the  Jesuits  might  confer  on  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, are  they  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  ill-fated  class 
of  men,  in  having  travelled  from  so  remote  a  distance 
to  introduce  trouble  and  discord  into  one  of  the  most 
extended  and  best-governed  kingdoms  of  the  world  ? 
And  does  not  their  conduct  involve  a  dreadful  abuse 
of  the  liberality  and  indulgence  shown  by  the  Ori- 
entals, more  particularly  after  the  torrents  of  blood 
shed,  through  their  means,  in  the  empire  of  Japan? 


84  Philosophical 

A  scene  of  horror,  to  prevent  the  consequence  of 
which  the  government  believed  it  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  shut  their  ports  against  all  foreigners. 

The  Jesuits  had  obtained  permission  of  the  em- 
peror of  China,  Cam-hi,  to  teach  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion. They  made  use  of  it,  to  instil  into  the  small 
portion  of  the  people  under  their  direction,  that  it 
was  incumbent  on  them  to  serve  no  other  master  than 
him  who  was  the  vicegerent  of  God  on  earth,  and 
who  dwelt  in  Italy  on  the  banks  of  a  small  river 
called  the  Tiber ;  that  every  other  religious  opinion, 
every  other  worship,  was  an  abomination  in  the  sight 
of  God,  and  whoever  did  not  believe  the  Jesuits 
would  be  punished  by  Him  to  all  eternity ;  that  their 
emperor  and  benefactor,  Cam-hi,  who  could  not  even 
pronounce  the  name  of  Christ,  as  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage possesses  not  the  letter  "r,"  would  suffer 
eternal  damnation ;  that  the  Emperor  Youtchin  would 
experience,  without  mercy,  the  same  fate ;  that  all 
the  ancestors,  both  of  Chinese  and  Tartars,  would 
incur  a  similar  penalty ;  that  their  descendants  would 
undergo  it  also,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  and 
that  the  reverend  fathers,  the  Jesuits,  felt  a  sincere 
and  paternal  commiseration  for  the  damnation  of  so 
many  souls. 

They,  at  length,  succeeded  in  making  converts  of 
three  princes  of  the  Tartar  race.  In  the  meantime, 
the  Emperor  Cam-hi  died,  towards  the  close  of  the 
year  1722.  He  bequeathed  the  empire  to  his  fourth 
son,  who  has  been  so  celebrated  through  the  whole 


Dictionary.  85 

world  for  the  justice  and  the  wisdom  of  his  govern- 
ment, for  the  affection  entertained  for  him  by  his 
subjects,  and  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits. 

They  began  by  baptizing  the  three  princes,  and 
many  persons  of  their  household.  These  neophytes 
had  the  misfortune  to  displease  the  emperor  on  some 
points  which  merely  respected  military  duty.  About 
this  very  period  the  indignation  of  the  whole  empire 
against  the  missionaries  broke  out  into  a  flame.  All 
the  governors  of  provinces,  all  the  Colaos,  presented 
memorials  against  them.  The  accusations  against 
them  were  urged  so  far  that  the  three  princes,  who 
had  become  disciples  of  the  Jesuits,  were  put  into 
irons. 

It  is  clear  that  they  were  not  treated  with  this 
severity  simply  for  having  been  baptized,  since  the 
Jesuits  themselves  acknowledge  in  their  letters,  that 
they  experienced  no  violence,  and  that  they  were  even 
admitted  to  an  audience  of  the  emperor,  who  honored 
them  with  some  presents.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
that  the  Emperor  Youtchin  was  no  persecutor ;  and, 
if  the  princes  were  confined  in  a  prison  on  the  borders 
of  Tartary,  while  those  who  had  converted  them 
were  treated  so  liberally,  it  is  a  decided  proof  that 
they  were  state  prisoners,  and  not  martyrs. 

The  emperor,  soon  after  this,  yielded  to  the  sup- 
plications of  all  his  people.  They  petitioned  that  the 
Jesuits  might  be  sent  away,  as  their  abolition  has 
been  since  prayed  for  in  France  and  other  countries. 
All  the  tribunals  of  China  urged  their  being  imme- 


86  Philosophical 

diately  sent  to  Macao,  which  is  considered  as  a  place 
without  the  limits  of  the  empire,  and  the  possession 
of  which  has  always  been  left  to  the  Portuguese,  wdth 
a  Chinese  garrison. 

Youtchin  had  the  humanity  to  consult  the  tribu- 
nals and  governors,  whether  any  danger  could  result 
from  conveying  all  the  Jesuits  to  the  province  of  Can- 
ton. While  awaiting  the  reply,  he  ordered  three  of 
them  to  be  introduced  to  his  presence,  and  addressed 
them  in  the  follow'ing  words,  which  Father  Parennin, 
with  great  ingenuousness,  records :  "Your  Euro- 
peans, in  the  province  of  Fo-Kien,  intended  to  abol- 
ish our  laws,  and  disturbed  our  people.  The  tribu- 
nals have  denounced  them  before  me.  It  is  my  posi- 
tive duty  to  provide  against  such  disorders :  the  good 

of  the  empire  requires  it What  would  you 

say  were  I  to  send  over  to  your  country  a  company 
of  bonzes  and  lamas  to  preach  their  law?  How 
would  you  receive  them?  ....  If  you  deceived 
my  father,  hope  not  also  to  deceive  me.  .  ,  .  .  You 
wish  to  make  the  Chinese  Christians :  your  law,  I 
well  know,  requires  this  of  you.  But  in  case  you 
should  succeed,  what  should  we  become?  the  sub- 
jects of  your  kings.  Christians  believe  none  but  you  : 
in  a  time  of  confusion  they  would  listen  to  no  voice 
but  yours.  I  know  that,  at  present,  there  is  nothing 
to  fear;  but  on  the  arrival  of  a  thousand,  or  perhaps 
ten  thousand  vessels,  great  disturbances  might  ensue. 

"China,  on  the  north,  joins  the  kingdom  of  Russia, 
which  is  by  no  means  contemptible ;   to  the  south  it 


Dictionary.  87 

has  the  Europeans,  and  their  kingdoms,  which  are 
still  more  considerable ;  and  to  the  west,  the  princes 
of  Tartary,  with  whom  we  have  been  at  war  eight 

years Laurence  Lange,  companion  of 

Prince  Ismailoff,  ambassador  from  the  czar,  re- 
quested that  the  Russians  might  have  permission  to 
establish  factories  in  each  of  the  provinces.  The  per- 
mission was  confined  to  Pekin,  and  within  the  limits 
of  Calcas.  In  like  manner  I  permit  you  to  remain 
here  and  at  Canton  as  long  as  you  avoid  giving  any 
cause  of  complaint.  Should  you  give  any,  I  will  not 
suffer  you  to  remain  either  here  or  at  Canton." 

In  the  other  provinces  their  houses  and  churches 
were  levelled  to  the  ground.  At  length  the  clamor 
against  them  redoubled.  The  charges  most  strenu- 
ously insisted  upon  against  them  were,  that  they 
weakened  the  respect  of  children  for  their  parents, 
by  not  paying  the  honors  due  to  ancestors  ;  that  they 
indecently  brought  together  young  men  and  women 
in  retired  places,  which  they  called  churches ;  that 
they  made  girls  kneel  before  them,  and  enclosed 
them  with  their  legs,  and  conversed  with  them,  while 
in  this  posture,  in  undertones.  To  Chinese  delicacy, 
nothing  appeared  more  revolting  than  this.  Their 
emperor,  Youtchin,  even  condescended  to  inform  the 
Jesuits  of  this  fact ;  after  which  he  sent  away  the 
greater  part  of  the  missionaries  to  Macao,  but  with 
all  that  polite  attention  which  perhaps  the  Chinese 
alone  are  capable  of  displaying. 

Some  Jesuits,  possessed  of  mathematical  science. 


88  Philosophical 

were  retained  at  Pekin  ;  and  among  others,  that  same 
Parennin  whom  we  have  mentioned  ;  and  who,  being 
a  perfect  master  both  of  the  Chinese  and  of  the  Tar- 
tar language,  had  been  frequently  employed  as  an  in- 
terpreter. Many  of  the  Jesuits  concealed  themselves 
in  the  distant  provinces ;  others  even  in  Canton  it- 
self;  and  the  afifair  was  connived  at. 

At  length,  after  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Yout- 
chin,  his  son  and  successor,  Kien-Lung,  completed 
the  satisfaction  of  the  nation  by  compelling  all  the 
missionaries  who  were  in  concealment  throughout 
his  empire  to  remove  to  Macao :  a  solemn  edict  pre- 
vented them  from  ever  returning.  If  any  appear, 
they  are  civilly  requested  to  carry  their  talents  some- 
where else.  There  is  nothing  of  severity,  nothing  of 
persecution.  I  have  been  told  that,  in  1760,  a  Jesuit 
having  gone  from  Rome  to  Canton,  and  been  in- 
formed against  by  a  Dutch  factor,  the  Colao  gov- 
ernor of  Canton  had  him  sent  away,  presenting  him 
at  the  same  time  with  a  piece  of  silk,  some  provisions, 
and  money. 

Of  the  pretended  Atheism  of  China. 

The  charge  of  Atheism,  alleged  by  our  theologians 
of  the  west,  against  the  Chinese  government  at  the 
other  end  of  the  world,  has  been  frequently  exam- 
ined, and  is,  it  must  be  admitted,  the  meanest  excess 
of  our  follies  and  pedantic  inconsistencies.  It  was 
sometimes  pretended,  in  one  of  our  learned  faculties, 
that  the  Chinese  tribunals  or  parliaments  were  idol- 


Dictionary.  89 

atrous ;  sometimes  that  they  acknowledged  no  divin- 
ity whatever :  and  these  reasoners  occasionally 
pushed  their  logic  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  the 
Chinese  were,  at  the  same  time,  atheists  and  idol- 
aters. 

In  the  month  of  October,  1700,  the  Sorbonne  de- 
clared every  proposition  which  maintained  that  the 
emperor  and  the  Colaos  believed  in  God  to  be  hereti- 
cal. Bulky  volumes  were  composed  in  order  to  dem- 
onstrate, conformably  to  the  system  of  theological 
demonstration,  that  the  Chinese  adored  nothing  but 
the  material  heaven. 

Nil praetei-  mibes  et  coeli  numen  adorant. 
They  worship  clouds  and  firmament  alone. 

But  if  they  did  adore  the  material  heaven,  that 
w-as  their  God.  They  resembled  the  Persians,  who 
are  said  to  have  adored  the  sun :  they  resembled  the 
ancient  Arabians,  who  adored  the  stars :  they  w^ere 
neither  worshippers  of  idols  nor  atheists.  But  a 
learned  doctor,  when  it  is  an  object  to  denounce  from 
his  tripod  any  proposition  as  heretical  or  obnoxious, 
does  not  distinguish  with  much  clearness. 

Those  contemptible  creatures  who,  in  1700,  cre- 
ated such  a  disturbance  about  the  material  heaven  of 
the  Chinese,  did  not  know  that,  in  1689,  the  Chinese, 
having  made  peace  with  the  Russians  at  Nicptchou, 
which  divides  the  two  empires,  erected,  in  Septem- 
ber of  the  same  year,  a  marble  monument,  on  which 
the  following  memorable  words  were  engraved  in 
the  Chinese  and  Latin  languages  : 


9©  Philosophical 

"Should  any  ever  determine  to  rekindle  the  flames 
of  war,  we  pray  the  sovereign  reign  of  all  things, 
who  knows  the  heart,  to  punish  their  perfidy,"  etc. 

A  very  small  portion  of  modern  history  is  suffi- 
cient to  put  an  end  to  these  ridiculous  disputes :  but 
those  who  believe  that  the  duty  of  man  consists  in 
writing  commentaries  on  St.  Thomas,  or  Scotus,  can- 
not condescend  to  inform  themselves  of  what  is  going 
on  among  the  great  empires  of  the  world. 

SECTION    II. 

We  travel  to  China  to  obtain  clay  for  porcelain, 
as  if  we  had  none  ourselves ;  stuffs,  as  if  we  were 
destitute  of  stuff's ;  and  a  small  herb  to  be  infused  in 
water,  as  if  we  had  no  simples  in  our  own  countries. 
In  return  for  these  benefits,  we  are  desirous  of  con- 
verting the  Chinese.  It  is  a  very  commendable  zeal ; 
but  we  must  avoid  controverting  their  antiquity,  and 
also  calling  them  idolaters.  Should  we  think  it  well 
of  a  capuchin,  if,  after  having  been  hospitably  enter- 
tained at  the  chateau  of  the  Montmorencys,  he  en- 
deavored to  persuade  them  that  they  were  new  no- 
bility, like  the  king's  secretaries ;  or  accused  them 
of  idolatry,  because  he  found  two  or  three  statues  of 
constables,  for  whom  they  cherished  the  most  pro- 
found respect? 

The  celebrated  Wolf,  professor  of  mathematics 
in  the  university  of  Halle,  once  delivered  an  excellent 
discourse  in  praise  of  the  Chinese  philosophy.  He 
praised  that  ancient  species  of  the  human  race,  differ- 


Dictionary.  91 

ing,  as  it  does,  in  respect  to  the  beard,  the  eyes,  the 
nose,  the  ears,  and  even  the  reasoning  powers  them- 
selves ;  he  praised  the  Chinese,  I  say,  for  their  adora- 
tion of  a  supreme  God,  and  their  love  of  virtue.  He 
did  that  justice  to  the  emperors  of  China,  to  the  trib- 
unals, and  to  the  literati.  The  justice  done  to  the 
bonzes  was  of  a  different  kind. 

It  is  necessary  to  observe,  that  this  Professor 
Wolf  had  attracted  around  him  a  thousand  pupils  of 
all  nations.  In  the  same  university  there  was  also  a 
professor  of  theology,  who  attracted  no  one.  This 
man,  maddened  at  the  thought  of  freezing  to  death 
in  his  own  deserted  hall,  formed  the  design,  which 
undoubtedly  was  only  right  and  reasonable,  of  de- 
stroying the  mathematical  professor.  He  scrupled 
not,  according  to  the  practice  of  persons  like  himself, 
to  accuse  him  of  not  believing  in  God. 

Some  European  writers,  who  had  never  been  in 
China,  had  pretended  that  the  government  of  Pekin 
was  atheistical.  Wolf  had  praised  the  philosophers 
of  Pekin ;  therefore  Wolf  was  an  atheist.  Envy 
and  hatred  seldom  construct  the  best  syllogisms. 
This  argument  of  Lange,  supported  by  a  party  and 
by  a  protector,  was  considered  conclusive  by  the  sov- 
ereign of  the  country,  who  despatched  a  formal  di- 
lemma to  the  mathematician.  This  dilemma  gave 
him  the  option  of  quitting  Halle  in  twenty-four 
hours,  or  of  being  hanged ;  and  as  Wolf  was  a  ver}- 
accurate  reasoner,  he  did  not  fail  to  quit.  His  with- 
drawing deprived  the  king  of  two  or  three  hundred 


92  Philosophical 

thousand  crowns  a  year,  which  were  brought  into 
the  kingdom  in  consequence  of  the  wealth  of  this 
philosopher's  disciples. 

This  case  should  convince  sovereigns  that  they 
should  not  be  over  ready  to  listen  to  calumny,  and 
sacrifice  a  great  man  to  the  madness  of  a  fool.  But 
let  us  return  to  China. 

Why  should  we  concern  ourselves,  we  who  live  at 
the  extremity  of  the  west — why  should  we  dispute 
with  abuse  and  fury,  whether  there  were  fourteen 
princes  or  not  before  Fo-hi,  emperor  of  China,  and 
whether  the  said  Fo-hi  lived  three  thousand,  or  two 
thousand  nine  hundred  years  before  our  vulgar  era  ? 
I  should  like  to  see  two  Irishmen  quarrelling  at  Dub- 
lin, about  who  was  the  owner,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
of  the  estate  I  am  now  in  possession  of.  Is  it  not 
clear,  that  they  should  refer  to  me,  who  possess  the 
documents  and  titles  relating  to  it  ?  To  my  mind,  the 
case  is  the  same  with  respect  to  the  first  emperors  of 
China,  and  the  tribunals  of  that  country  are  the 
proper  resort  upon  the  subject. 

Dispute  as  long  as  you  please  about  the  fourteen 
princes  who  reigned  before  Fo-hi,  your  very  interest- 
ing dispute  cannot  possibly  fail  to  prove  that  China 
was  at  that  period  populous,  and  that  laws  were  in 
force  there.  I  now  ask  you,  whether  a  people's  being 
collected  together,  under  laws  and  kings,  involves  not 
the  idea  of  very  considerable  antiquity  ?  Reflect  how 
long  a  time  is  requisite,  before  by  a  singular  concur- 
rence of  circumstances,  the  iron  is  discovered  in  the 


Dictionary.  93 

mine,  before  it  is  applied  to  purposes  of  agriculture,, 
before  the  invention  of  the  shuttle,  and  all  the  arts 
of  life. 

Some  who  multiply  mankind  by  a  dash  of  the  pen, 
have  produced  very  curious  calculations.  The  Jesuit 
Petau,  by  a  very  singular  computation,  gives  the 
world,  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  after  the 
deluge,  one  hundred  times  as  many  inhabitants  as 
can  be  easily  conceived  to  exist  on  it  at  present.  The 
Curaberlands  and  Whistons  have  formed  calcula- 
tions equally  ridiculous ;  had  these  worthies  only 
consulted  the  registers  of  our  colonies  in  America, 
they  would  have  been  perfectly  astonished,  and 
would  have  perceived  not  only  how  slowly  mankind 
increase  in  number,  but  that  frequently  instead  of 
increasing  they  actually  diminish. 

Let  us  then,  who  are  merely  of  yesterday,  de- 
scendants of  the  Celts,  who  have  only  just  finished 
clearing  the  forests  of  our  savage  territories,  suffer 
the  Chinese  and  Indians  to  enjoy  in  peace  their  fine 
climate  and  their  antiquity.  Let  us,  especially,  cease 
calling  the  emperor  of  China,  and  the  souba  of  the 
Deccan,  idolaters.  There  is  no  necessity  for  being 
a  zealot  in  estimating  Chinese  merit.  The  constitu- 
tion of  their  empire  is  the  only  one  entirely  estab- 
lished upon  paternal  authority;  the  only  one  in 
which  the  governor  of  a  province  is  punished,  if,  on 
quitting  his  station,  he  does  not  receive  the  acclama- 
tions of  the  people  ;  the  only  one  which  has  instituted 
rewards  for  virtue,  while,  everywhere  else,  the  sole 


94  Philosophical 

object  of  the  laws  is  the  punishment  of  crime ,  the 
only  one  which  has  caused  its  laws  to  be  adopted  by 
its  concjuerors,  while  we  are  still  subject  to  the  cus- 
toms of  the  Burgundians,  the  Franks,  and  the  Goths, 
by  whom  we  were  conquered.  Yet,  we  must  confess, 
that  the  common  people,  guided  by  the  bonzes,  are 
equally  knavish  with  our  own ;  that  everything  is 
sold  enormously  dear  to  foreigners,  as  among  our- 
selves ;  that,  with  respect  to  the  sciences,  the  Chinese 
are  just  where  we  were  two  hundred  years  ago ;  that, 
like  us,  they  labor  under  a  thousand  ridiculous  preju- 
dices ;  and  that  they  believe  in  talismans  and  judi- 
cial astrology,  as  we  long  did  ourselves. 

We  must  admit  also,  that  they  were  astonished  at 
our  thermometer,  at  our  method  of  freezing  fluids  by 
means  of  saltpetre,  and  at  all  the  experiments  of 
Torricelli  and  Otto  von  Guericke ;  as  we  were  also, 
on  seeing  for  the  first  time  those  curious  processes. 
We  add,  that  their  physicians  do  not  cure  mortal  dis- 
eases any  more  than  our  own ;  and  that  minor  dis- 
eases, both  here  and  in  China,  are  cured  by  nature 
alone.  All  this,  however,  does  not  interfere  with  the 
fact,  that  the  Chinese,  for  four  thousand  years,  when 
we  were  unable  even  to  read,  knew  ever\thing  essen- 
tially useful  of  which  we  boast  at  the  present  day. 
.  I  must  again  repeat,  the  religion  of  their  learned 
is  admirable,  and  free  from  superstitions,  from  ab- 
surd legends,  from  dogmas  insulting  both  to  reason 
and  nature,  to  which  the  bonzes  give  a  thousand  dif- 
ferent meanings,  because  they  really  often  have  none. 


Dictionary,  9^ 

The  most  simple  worship  has  appeared  to  them  the 
best,  for  a  series  of  forty  centuries.  They  are,  what 
we  conceive  Seth,  Enoch,  and  Noah  to  have  been ; 
they  are  contented  to  adore  one  God  in  communion 
with  the  sages  of  the  world,  while  Europe  is  divided 
between  Thomas  and  Bonaventure,  between  Calvin 
and  Luther,  between  Jansenius  and  Molina. 

CHRISTIANITY. 

Establishment  of  CJiristianity,  in  its  Civil  and 
Political  State.'— Section  I. 

God  forbid  that  we  should  dare  to  mix  the  sacred 
with  the  profane  !  We  seek  not  to  fathom  the  depths 
of  the  ways  of  Providence.  We  are  men,  and  we  ad- 
dress men  only. 

When  Antony,  and  after  him  Augustus,  had  given 
Judaea  to  the  Arabian,  Herod — their  creature  and 
their  tributary — that  prince,  a  stranger  among  the 
Jews,  became  the  most  powerful  of  all  kings.  He 
had  ports  on  the  Mediterranean — Ptolemais  and 
Ascalon ;  he  built  towns ;  he  erected  a  temple  to 
Apollo  at  Rhodes,  and  one  to  Augustus  in  Caesarea ; 
he  rebuilt  that  of  Jerusalem  from  the  foundation, 
and  converted  it  into  a  strong  citadel.  Under  his 
rule,  Palestine  enjoyed  profound  peace.  In  short, 
barbarous  as  he  was  to  his  family,  and  tyrannical 
towards  his  people,  whose  substance  he  consumed  in 
the  execution  of  his  projects,  he  was  looked  upon  as 
a  Messiah.  He  worshipped  only  Caesar,  and  he  was 
also  worshipped  by  the  Herodians. 


^6  Philosophical 

The  sect  of  the  Jews  had  long  been  spread  in 
Europe  and  Asia ;  but  its  tenets  were  entirely  un- 
known. No  one  knew  anything  of  the  Jewish  books, 
although  we  are  told  that  some  of  them  had  already 
been  translated  into  Greek,  in  Alexandria.  The  Jews 
were  known  only  as  the  Armenians  are  now  known 
to  the  Turks  and  Persians,  as  brokers  and  traders. 
Further,  a  Turk  never  takes  the  trouble  to  inquire, 
whether  an  Armenian  is  a  Eutychian,  a  Jacobite,  one 
of  St.  John's  Christians,  or  an  Arian.  The  theism  of 
China,  and  the  much  to  be  respected  books  of  Con- 
fucius, were  still  less  known  to  the  nations  of  the 
west,  than  the  Jewish  rites. 

The  Arabians,  who  furnished  the  Romans  with 
the  precious  commodities  of  India,  had  no  more  idea 
of  the  theology  of  the  Brahmins  than  our  sailors 
who  go  to  Pondicherry  or  Madras.  The  Indian 
women  had  from  time  immemorial  enjoyed  the  priv- 
ilege of  burning  themselves  on  the  bodies  of  their 
husbands ;  yet  these  astonishing  sacrifices,  which  are 
still  practised,  were  as  unknown  to  the  Jews  as  the 
customs  of  America.  Their  books,  which  speak  of 
Cog  and  Magog,  never  mention  India. 

The  ancient  religion  of  Zoroaster  was  celebrated ; 
but  not  therefore  the  more  understood  in  the  Roman 
Empire.  It  was  only  known,  in  general,  that  the 
magi  admitted  a  resurrection,  a  hell,  and  a  paradise ; 
which  doctrine  must  at  that  time  have  made  its  way 
to  the  Jews  bordering  on  Chaldsea ;  since,  in  Herod's 
time,  Palestine  was  divided  between  the  Pharisees, 


Dictionary.  97 

who  began  to  believe  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection, 
and  the  Sadducees,  who  regarded  it  only  with  con- 
tempt. 

Alexandria,  the  most  commercial  city  in  the  whole 
world,  was  peopled  with  Egyptians,  who  worshipped 
Serapis,  and  consecrated  cats;  wnth  Greeks,  who 
philosophized ;  with  Romans,  who  ruled ;  and  with 
Jews,  who  amassed  wealth.  All  these  people  were 
eagerly  engaged  in  money-getting,  immersed  in 
pleasure,  infuriate  with  fanaticism,  making  and  un- 
making religious  sects,  especially  during  the  external 
tranquillity  which  they  enjoyed  when  Augustus  had 
shut  the  temple  of  Janus. 

The  Jews  were  divided  into  three  principal  fac- 
tions. Of  these,  the  Samaritans  called  themselves 
the  most  ancient,  becaus-e  Samaria  (then  Sebaste) 
had  subsisted,  while  Jerusalem,  with  its  temple,  was 
destroyed  under  the  Babylonian  kings.  But  these 
Samaritans  were  a  mixture  of  the  people  of  Persia 
with  those  of  Palestine. 

The  second,  and  most  powerful  faction,  was  that 

of  the   Hierosolymites.      These   Jews,   properly   so 

called,  detested  the  Samaritans,  and  were  detested 

by  them.     Their  interests  were  all  opposite.    They 

wished  that  no  sacrifices  should  be  offered  but  in  the 

temple  of  Jerusalem.    Such  a  restriction  would  have 

brought  a  deal  of  money  into  their  city ;  and,  for  this 

very  reason,  the  Samaritans  would  sacrifice  nowhere 

but  at  home.    A  small  people,  in  a  small  town,  may 

have  but  one  temple ;   but  when  a  people  have  ex- 
Vol.  7-7 


98  Philosophical 

tended  themselves  over  a  country  seventy  leagues 
long,  by  twenty-three  wide,  as  the  Jews  had  done — 
when  their  territory  is  almost  as  large  and  populous 
as  Languedoc  or  Normandy,  it  would  be  absurd  to 
have  but  one  church.  What  would  the  good  people 
of  Montpellier  say,  if  they  could  attend  mass  no- 
where but  at  Toulouse  ? 

The  third  faction  were  the  Hellenic  Jews,  consist- 
ing chiefly  of  such  as  were  engaged  in  trade  or  handi- 
craft in  Egypt  and  Greece.  These  had  the  same  in- 
terests with  the  Samaritans.  Onias,  the  son  of  a  high 
priest,  wishing  to  be  a  high  priest  like  his  father,  ob- 
tained permission  from  Ptolemy  Philometor,  king  of 
Egypt,  and  in  particular  from  the  king's  wife,  Cleo- 
patra, to  build  a  Jewish  temple  near  Bubastis.  He 
assured  Queen  Cleopatra  that  Isaiah  had  foretold 
that  the  Lord  should  one  day  have  a  temple  on  that 
spot ;  and  Cleopatra,  to  whom  he  made  a  handsome 
present,  sent  him  word  that,  since  Isaiah  had  said  it, 
it  must  be.  This  temple  was  called  the  Onion ;  and 
if  Onias  was  not  a  great  sacrificer,  he  commanded  a 
troop  of  militia.  It  was  built  one  hundred  and  sixty 
years  before  the  Christian  era.  The  Jews  of  Jerusa- 
lem always  held  this  Onion  in  abhorrence,  as  they  did 
the  translation  called  the  Septuagint.  They  even 
instituted  an  expiatory  feast  for  these  two  pretended 
sacrileges.  The  rabbis  of  the  Onion,  mingling  with 
the  Greeks,  became  more  learned  (in  their  way) 
than  the  rabbis  of  Jerusalem  and  Samaria ;  and  the 
three   factions   began    to    dispute   on    controversial 


Dictionary.  99 

questions,  which  necessarily  make  men  subtle,  false, 
and  unsocial. 

The  Egyptian  Jews,  in  order  to  equal  the  austerity 
of  the  Essenes,  and  the  Judates  of  Palestine,  estab- 
lished, some  time  before  the  birth  of  Christianity,  the 
sect  of  the  Therapeutas,  who,  like  them,  devoted 
themselves  to  a  sort  of  monastic  life,  and  to  mortifi- 
cations. These  different  societies  were  imitations  of 
the  old  Egyptian,  Persian,  Thracian,  and  Greek  mys- 
teries, which  had  filled  the  earth,  from  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Nile  to  the  Tiber.  At  first,  such  as  were 
initiated  into  these  fraternities  were  few  in  number, 
and  were  looked  upon  as  privileged  men ;  but  in  the 
time  of  Augustus,  their  number  was  very  consider- 
able ;  so  that  nothing  but  religion  was  talked  of,  from 
Syria  to  IMount  Atlas  and  the  German  Ocean. 

Amidst  all  these  sects  and  worships,  the  school  of 
Plato  had  established  itself,  not  in  Greece  alone,  but 
also  in  Rome,  and  especially  in  Eg}^pt.  Plato  had 
been  considered  as  having  drawn  his  doctrine  from 
the  Egyptians,  who  thought  that,  in  turning  Plato's 
ideas  to  account,  his  word,  and  the  sort  of  trinity 
discoverable  in  some  of  his  works,  they  were  but 
claiming  their  own. 

This  philosophic  spirit,  spread  at  that  time  over 
all  the  known  countries  of  the  west,  seems  to  have 
emitted,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Palestine,  at  least  a 
few  sparks  of  the  spirit  of  reasoning.  It  is  certain 
that,  in  Herod's  time,  there  were  disputes  on  the 
attributes  of  the  divinity,  on  the  immortality  of  the 


lOO  Philosophical 

soul,  and  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  The  Jews  re- 
late, that  Queen  Cleopatra  asked  them  whether  we 
were  to  rise  again  dressed  or  naked  ? 

The  jews,  then,  were  reasoners  in  their  way.  The 
exaggerating  Josephus  was,  for  a  soldier,  very 
learned.  Such  being  the  case  with  a  military  man, 
there  must  have  been  many  a  learned  man  in  civil  life. 
His  contemporary,  Philo,  would  have  had  reputa- 
tion, even  among  the  Greeks.  St.  Paul's  master, 
Gamaliel,  was  a  great  controversialist.  The  authors 
of  the  "Mishna"  were  polymathists. 

The  Jewish  populace  discoursed  on  religion.  As, 
at  the  present  day,  in  Switzerland,  at  Geneva,  in  Ger- 
many, in  England,  and  especially  in  the  Cevennes,  we 
find  even  the  meanest  of  the  inhabitants  dealing  in 
controversy.  Nay,  more ;  men  from  the  dregs  of  the 
people  have  founded  sects :  as  Fox,  in  England ; 
Miinzer,  in  Germany;  and  the  first  reformers  in 
France.  Indeed,  Mahomet  himself,  setting  apart  his 
great  courage,  was  nothing  more  than  a  camel- 
driver. 

Add  to  these  preliminaries  that,  in  Herod's  time, 
it  was  imagined,  as  is  elsewhere  remarked,  that  the 
world  v/as  soon  to  be  at  an  end.  In  those  days,  pre- 
pared by  divine  providence,  it  pleased  the  eternal 
Father  to  send  His  Son  upon  earth — an  adorable  and 
incomprehensible  mystery,  which  we  presume  not  to 
approach. 

We  only  say,  that  if  Jesus  preached  a  pure  mor- 
ality ;  if  He  announced  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  the 


Dictionary.  loi 

reward  of  the  just;  if  He  had  disciples  attached  to 
His  person  and  His  virtues ;  if  those  very  virtues 
drew  upon  Him  the  persecutions  of  the  priests ;  if, 
through  calumny,  He  was  put  to  a  shameful  death ; 
His  doctrine,  constantly  preached  by  His  disciples, 
would  necessarily  have  a  great  effect  in  the  world. 
Once  more  let  me  repeat  it — I  speak  only  after  the 
manner  of  this  world,  setting  the  multitude  of 
miracles  and  prophecies  entirely  aside.  I  maintain 
it,  that  Christianity  was  more  likely  to  proceed  by 
His  death,  than  if  He  had  not  been  persecuted.  You 
are  astonished  that  His  disciples  made  other  dis- 
ciples. I  should  have  been  much  more  astonished,  if 
they  had  not  brought  over  a  great  many  to  their 
party.  Seventy  individuals,  convinced  of  the  inno- 
cence of  their  leader,  the  purity  of  His  manners,  and 
the  barbarity  of  His  judges,  must  influence  many  a 
feeling  heart. 

St.  Paul,  alone,  became  (for  whatever  reason)  the 
enemy  of  his  master  Gamaliel,  must  have  had  it  in 
his  power  to  bring  Jesus  a  thousand  adherents,  even 
supposing  Jesus  to  have  been  only  a  worthy  and  op- 
pressed man.  Paul  was  learned,  eloquent,  vehem- 
ent, indefatigable,  skilled  in  the  Greek  tongue,  and 
seconded  by  zealots  much  more  interested  than  him- 
self in  defending  their  Master's  reputation.  St. 
Luke  was  an  Alexandrian  Greek,  and  a  man  of  let- 
ters, for  he  was  a  physician. 

The  first  chapter  of  John  displays  a  Platonic  sub- 
limity, which  must  have  been  gratifying  to  the  Pla- 


I02  Philosophical 

tonists  of  Alexandria.  And  indeed  there  was  even 
formed  in  that  city  a  school  founded  by  Luke,  or  by 
Mark  (either  the  evangelist  or  some  other),  and 
perpetuated  by  Athenagoras,  Pantsenus,  Origen,  and 
Clement — all  learned  and  eloquent.  This  school  once 
established,  it  was  impossible  for  Christianity  not  to 
make  rapid  progress. 

Greece,  Syria,  and  Egypt,  were  the  scenes  of  those 
celebrated  ancient  mysteries,  which  enchanted  the 
minds  of  the  people.  The  Christians,  too,  had  their 
mysteries,  in  which  men  would  eagerly  seek  to  be 
initiated ;  and  if  at  first  only  through  curiosity,  this 
curiosity  soon  became  persuasion.  The  idea  of  the 
approaching  end  of  all  things  was  especially  cal- 
culated to  induce  the  new  disciples  to  despise  the 
transitory  goods  of  this  life,  which  were  so  soon  to 
perish  with  them.  The  example  of  the  Therapeutse 
was  an  incitement  to  a  solitary  and  mortified  life. 
All  these  things,  then,  powerfully  concurred  in  the 
establishment  of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  different  flocks  of  this  great  rising  society 
could  not,  it  is  true,  agree  among  themselves.  Fifty- 
four  societies  had  fifty-four  diflferent  gospels ;  all 
secret,  like  their  mysteries ;  all  unknown  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, who  never  saw  our  four  canonical  gospels  until 
the  end  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years.  These  vari- 
ous flocks;  though  divided,  acknowledged  the  same 
pastor.  Ebionites,  opposed  to  St.  Paul ;  Nazarenes, 
disciples  of  Hymeneos,  Alexandres,  and  Hcrmo- 
genes ;      Carpocratians,     Basilidians,     Valentinians, 


Dictionary.  103 

Marcionites,  Sabellians,  Gnostics,  Montanists — a 
hundred  sects,  rising  one  against  another,  and  cast- 
ing mutual  reproaches,  were  nevertheless  all  united 
in  Jesus  ;  all  called  upon  Jesus  ;  all  made  Jesus  the 
great  object  of  their  thoughts,  and  reward  of  their 
travails. 

The  Roman  Empire,  in  which  all  these  societies 
were  formed,  at  first  paid  no  attention  to  them. 
They  were  known  at  Rome  only  by  the  general  name 
of  Jews,  about  whom  the  government  gave  itself  no 
concern.  The  Jews  had,  by  their  money,  acquired 
the  right  of  trading.  In  the  reign  of  Tiberius  four 
thousand  of  them  were  driven  out  of  Rome ;  in  that 
of  Nero  the  people  charged  them  and  the  new  demi- 
Christian  Jews  with  the  burning  of  Rome. 

They  were  again  expelled  in  the  reign  of 
Claudius,  but  their  money  always  procured  them  re- 
admission  ;  they  were  quiet  and  despised.  The 
Christians  of  Rome  were  not  so  numerous  as  those 
of  Greece,  Alexandria  and  Syria.  The  Romans  in 
the  earlier  ages  had  neither  fathers  of  the  church  nor 
heresiarchs.  The  farther  they  were  from  the  birth- 
place of  Christianity,  the  fewer  doctors  and  writers 
were  to  be  found  among  them.  The  church  was 
Greek;  so  much  so,  that  every  mystery,  every  rite, 
every  tenet,  was  expressed  in  the  Greek  tongue. 

All  Christians,  whether  Greek,  Syrian,  Roman,  or 
Egyptian,  were  considered  as  half  Jewish.  This 
was  another  reason  for  concealing  their  books  from 
the  Gentiles,  that  they  might  remain  united  and  im- 


1 04  Philosophical 

penetrable.  Their  secret  was  more  inviolably  kept 
than  that  of  the  mysteries  of  Isis  or  of  Ceres ;  they 
were  a  republic  apart — a  state  within  the  state.  They 
had  no  temples,  no  altars,  no  sacrifice,  no  public 
ceremony.  They  elected  their  secret  superiors  by  a 
majority  of  voices.  These  superiors,  under  the  title 
of  ancients,  priests,  bishops,  or  deacons,  managed 
the  common  purse,  took  care  of  the  sick  and  pacified 
quarrels.  Among  them  it  was  a  shame  and  a  crime 
to  plead  before  the  tribunals  or  to  enlist  in  the  armed 
force ;  and  for  a  hundred  years  there  was  not  a 
single  Christian  in  the  armies  of  the  empire. 

Thus,  retired  in  the  midst  of  the  world  and  un- 
known even  when  they  appeared,  they  escaped  the 
tyranny  of  the  proconsuls  and  praetors  and  were  free 
amid  the  public  slavery.  It  is  not  known  who  wrote 
the  famous  book  entitled  "Tcov  "A-offzoXcov  Ai^ayaC 
(the  Apostolical  Constitutions),  as  it  is  unknown 
who  were  the  authors  of  the  fifty  rejected  gospels,  of 
the  Acts  of  St.  Peter,  of  the  Testament  of  the  Twelve 
Patriarchs,  and  of  so  many  other  writings  of  the 
first  Christians;  but  it  is  likely  that  the  "Constitu- 
tions" are  of  the  second  century.  Though  falsely  at- 
tributed to  the  apostles,  they  are  very  valuable.  They 
show  us  what  were  the  duties  of  a  bishop  chosen  by 
the  Christians,  how  they  were  to  reverence  him,  and 
what  tribute  they  were  to  pay  him.  The  bishop 
could  have  but  one  wife,  who  was  to  take  good  care 

of  his  household :  "Mac  w>^pa  ysyv^diLsvov  yuvatxbc; 
fiovoydfxou  xdkdv  too  ISioo  ofxou  Tcpoeffrdra.^^ 


Dictionary.  105 

Rich  Christians  were  exhorted  to  adopt  the  chil- 
dren of  poor  ones.  Collections  were  made  for  the 
widows  and  orphans;  but  the  money  of  sinners 
was  rejected ;  and,  nominally,  an  innkeeper  was  not 
permitted  to  give  his  mite.  It  is  said  that  they  were 
regarded  as  cheats ;  for  which  reason  very  few  tav- 
ern-keepers were  Christians.  This  also  prevented 
the  Christians  from  frequenting  the  taverns ;  thus 
completing  their  separation  from  the  society  of  the 
Gentiles. 

The  dignity  of  deaconess  being  attainable  by  the 
women,  they  were  the  more  attached  to  the  Christian 
fraternity.  They  were  consecrated ;  the  bishop 
anointing  them  on  the  forehead,  as  of  old  the  Jewish 
kings  were  anointed.  By  how  many  indissoluble 
ties  were  the  Christians  bound  together ! 

The  persecutions,  which  were  never  more  than 
transitory,  did  but  serve  to  redouble  their  zeal  and 
inflame  their  fervor ;  so  that,  under  Diocletian,  one- 
third  of  the  empire  was  Christian.  Such  were  a  few 
of  the  human  causes  that  contributed  to  the  progress 
of  Christianity,  If  to  these  we  add  the  divine  causes, 
which  are  to  the  former  as  infinity  to  unity,  there  is 
only  one  thing  which  can  surprise  us  ;  that  a  religion 
so  true  did  not  at  once  extend  itself  over  the  two 
hemispheres,  not  excepting  the  most  savage  islet. 

God  Himself  came  down  from  heaven  and  died  to 
redeem  mankind  and  extirpate  sin  forever  from  the 
face  of  the  earth ;  and  yet  he  left  the  greater  part 
of  mankind  a  prey  to  error,  to  crime,  and  to  the  devil. 


io6  Philosophical 

This,  to  our  weak  intellects,  appears  a  fatal  contra- 
diction. But  it  is  not  for  us  to  question  Providence ; 
our  duty  is  to  humble  ourselves  in  the  dust  before  it. 

SECTION    II. 

Several  learned  men  have  testified  their  surprise 
at  not  finding  in  the  historian,  Flavins  Josephus, 
any  mention  of  Jesus  Christ ;  for  all  men  of  true 
learning  are  now  agreed  that  the  short  passage  rela- 
tive to  him  in  that  history  has  been  interpolated. 
The  father  of  Flavins  Josephus  must,  however,  have 
been  witness  to  all  the  miracles  of  Jesus.  Josephus 
was  of  the  sacerdotal  race  and  akin  to  Herod's  wife, 
Mariamne.  He  gives  us  long  details  of  all  that 
prince's  actions,  yet  says  not  a  word  of  the  life  or 
death  of  Jesus ;  nor  does  this  historian,  who  dis- 
guises none  of  Herod's  cruelties,  say  one  word  of 
the  general  massacre  of  the  infants  ordered  by  him 
on  hearing  that  there  was  born  a  king  of  the  Jews. 
The  Greek  calendar  estimates  the  number  of  children 
murdered  on  this  occasion  at  fourteen  thousand. 
This  is,  of  all  actions  of  all  tyrants,  the  most  horri- 
ble. There  is  no  example  of  it  in  the  history  of  the 
whole  world. 

Yet  the  best  writer  the  Jews  have  ever  had,  the 
only  one  esteemed  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  makes 
no  mention  of  an  event  so  singular  and  so  frightful. 
He  says  nothing  of  the  appearance  of  a  new  star  in 
the  east  after  the  birth  of  our  Saviour — a.  brilliant 
phenomenon,  which  could  not  escape  the  knowledge 


Dictionary.  107 

of  a  historian  so  enlightened  as  Josephus.  He  is 
also  silent  respecting  the  darkness  which,  on  our 
Saviour's  death,  covered  the  whole  earth  for  three 
hours  at  midday — the  great  number  of  graves  that 
opened  at  that  moment,  and  the  multitude  of  the 
just  that  rose  again. 

The  learned  are  constantly  evincing  their  sur- 
prise that  no  Roman  historian  speaks  of  these  prodi- 
gies, happening  in  the  empire  of  Tiberius,  under  the 
eyes  of  a  Roman  governor  and  a  Roman  garrison, 
who  must  have  sent  to  the  emperor  and  the  senate  a 
detailed  accotmt  of  the  most  miraculous  event  that 
mankind  had  ever  heard  of.  Rome  itself  must  have 
been  plunged  for  three  hours  in  impenetrable  dark- 
ness ;  such  a  prodigy  would  have  had  a  place  in  the 
annals  of  Rome,  and  in  those  of  every  nation.  But 
it  was  not  God's  will  that  these  divine  things  should 
be  written  down  by  their  profane  hands. 

The  same  persons  also  find  some  difficulties  in  the 
gospel  history.  They  remark  that,  in  Matthew, 
Jesus  Christ  tells  the  scribes  and  pharisees  that  all 
the  innocent  blood  that  has  been  shed  upon  earth, 
from  that  of  Abel  the  Just  down  to  that  of  Zachary, 
son  of  Barac,  whom  they  slew  between  the  temple 
and  the  altar,  shall  be  upon  their  heads. 

There  is  not  (say  they)  in  the  Hebrew  history 
any  Zachary  slain  in  the  temple  before  the  coming 
of  the  Messiah,  nor  in  His  time,  but  in  the  history 
of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  by  Josephus,  there  is  a 
Zachary,  son  of  Barac,  .slain  by  the  faction  of  the 


io8  Philosophical 

Zelotes.  This  is  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  the 
fourth  book.  Hence  they  suspect  that  the  gospel 
according  to  St.  Matthew  was  written  after  the 
taking  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus.  But  every  doubt, 
every  objection  of  this  kind,  vanishes  when  it  is  con- 
sidered how  great  a  difference  there  must  be  between 
books  divinely  inspired  and  the  books  of  men.  It 
was  God's  pleasure  to  envelop  ahke  in  awful  ob- 
scurity His  birth,  His  life,  and  His  death.  His  ways 
are  in  all  things  different  from  ours. 

The  learned  have  also  been  much  tormented  by 
the  difference  between  the  two  genealogies  of  Jesus 
Christ.  St.  Matthew  makes  Joseph  the  son  of  Jacob, 
Jacob  of  Matthan,  Matthan  of  Eleazar.  St.  Luke,  on 
the  contrary,  says  that  Joseph  was  the  son  of  Heli, 
Heli  of  Matthat,  Matthat  of  Levi,  Levi  of  Melchi, 
etc.  They  will  not  reconcile  the  fifty-six  progenitors 
up  to  Abraham,  given  to  Jesus  by  Luke,  with  the 
forty-two  other  forefathers  up  to  the  same  Abraham, 
given  him  by  Matthew  ;  and  they  are  quite  staggered 
by  Matthew's  giving  only  forty-one  generations, 
while  he  speaks  of  forty-two.  They  start  other  dif- 
ficulties about  Jesus  being  the  son,  not  of  Joseph, 
but  of  Mary.  They  moreover  raise  some  doubts  re- 
specting our  Saviour's  miracles,  quoting  St.  Au- 
gustine, St.  Hilary,  and  others,  who  have  given  to 
the  accounts  of  these  miracles  a  mystic  or  allegorical 
sense ;  as,  for  example,  to  the  fig  tree  cursed  and 
blasted  for  not  having  borne  figs  when  it  was  not  the 


Dictionary.  109 

fig  season ;  the  devils  sent  into  the  bodies  of  swine 
in  a  country  where  no  swine  were  kept;  the  water 
changed  into  wine  at  the  end  of  a  feast,  when  the 
guests  were  already  too  much  heated.  But  all  these 
learned  critics  are  confounded  by  the  faith,  which 
is  but  the  purer  for  their  cavils.  The  sole  design  of 
this  article  is  to  follow  the  historical  thread  and 
give  a  precise  idea  of  the  facts  about  which  there  is 
no  dispute. 

First,  then,  Jesus  was  born  under  the  Mosaic 
law ;  He  was  circumcised  according  to  that  law ;  He 
fulfilled  all  its  precepts ;  He  kept  all  its  feasts ;  He 
did  not  reveal  the  mystery  of  His  incarnation ;  He 
never  told  the  Jews  He  was  born  of  a  virgin ;  He 
received  John's  blessing  in  the  waters  of  the  Jordan, 
a  ceremony  to  which  various  of  the  Jews  submitted  ; 
but  He  never  baptized  any  one ;  He  never  spoke  of 
the  seven  sacraments  ;  He  instituted  no  ecclesiastical 
hierarchy  during  His  life.  He  concealed  from  His 
contemporaries  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God,  be- 
gotten from  all  eternity,  consubstantial  with  His 
Father ;  and  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeded  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son.  He  did  not  say  that  His  person 
was  composed  of  two  natures  and  two  wills.  He  left 
these  mysteries  to  be  announced  to  men  in  the  course 
of  time  by  those  who  were  to  be  enlightened  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.  So  long  as  He  lived.  He  departed  in 
nothing  from  the  law  of  His  fathers.  In  the  eyes  of 
men  He  was  no  more  than  a  just  man,  pleasing  to 


no  Philosophical 

God,  persecuted  by  the  envious  and  condemned  to 
death  by  prejudiced  magistrates.  He  left  His  holy 
church,  established  by  Him,  to  do  all  the  rest. 

Let  us  consider  the  state  of  religion  in  the  Roman 
Empire  at  that  period.  Mysteries  and  expiations 
were  in  credit  almost  throughout  the  earth.  The  em- 
perors, the  great,  and  the  philosophers,  had,  it  is 
true,  no  faith  in  these  mysteries  ;  but  the  people,  who, 
in  rehgious  matters,  give  the  law  to  the  great,  im- 
posed on  them  the  necessity  of  conforming  in  ap- 
pearance to  their  worship.  To  succeed  in  chaining 
the  multitude  you  must  seem  to  wear  the  same  fet- 
ters. Cicero  himself  was  initiated  in  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries.  The  knowledge  of  only  one  God  was  the 
principal  tenet  inculcated  in  these  mysteries  and 
magnificent  festivals.  It  is  undeniable  that  the 
prayers  and  hymns  handed  down  to  us  as  belonging 
to  these  mysteries  are  the  most  pious  and  most  ad- 
mirable of  the  relics  of  paganism.  The  Christians, 
who  likewise  adored  only  one  God,  had  thereby 
greater  facility  in  converting  some  of  the  Gentiles. 
Some  of  the  philosophers  of  Plato's  sect  became 
Christians ;  hence  in  the  three  first  centuries  the 
fathers  of  the  church  were  all  Platonists. 

The  inconsiderate  zeal  of  some  of  them  in  no 
way  detracts  from  the  fundamental  truths.  St. 
Justin,  one  of  the  primitive  fathers,  has  been  re- 
proached with  having  said,  in  his  commentary  on 
Isaiah,  that  the  saints  should  enjoy,  during  a  reign 
of  a  thousand  years  on  earth,  every  sensual  pleasure. 


Dictionary.  1 1 1 

He  has  been  charged  with  criminaHty  in  saying,  in  his 
"Apology  for  Christianity,"  that  God,  having  made 
the  earth,  left  it  in  the  care  of  the  angels,  who,  having 
fallen  in  love  with  the  women,  begot  children,  which 
are  the  devils. 

Lactantius,  with  other  fathers,  has  been  con- 
demned for  having  supposed  oracles  of  the  sibyls. 
He  asserted  that  the  sibyl  Erythrea  made  four  Greek- 
lines,  which  rendered  literally  are  : 

With  five  loaves  and  two  fishes 
He  shall  feed  five  thousand  men  in  the  desert; 
And,  gathering  up  the  fragments  that  remain, 
With  them  he  shall  fill  twelve  baskets. 

The  primitive  Christians  have  been  reproached 
with  inventing  some  acrostic  verses  on  the  name 
Jesus  Christ  and  attributing  them  to  an  ancient  sibyl. 
They  have  also  been  reproached  with  forging  letters 
from  Jesus  Christ  to  the  king  of  Edessa,  dated  at  a 
time  when  there  was  no  king  in  Edessa ;  with  having 
forged  letters  of  Mary,  letters  of  Seneca  to  Paul, 
false  gospels,  false  miracles,  and  a  thousand  other 
impostures. 

We  have,  moreover,  the  history  or  gospel  of  the 
nativity  and  marriage  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  wherein 
we  are  told  that  she  was  brought  to  the  temple  at 
three  years  old  and  walked  up  the  stairs  by  herself. 
It  is  related  that  a  dove  came  down  from  heaven  to 
give  notice  that  it  was  Joseph  who  was  to  espouse 
Mary.  We  have  the  protogospel  of  James,  brotlier 
of  Jesus  by  Joseph's  first  wife.    Tt  is  there  said  that 


112  Philosophical 

when  Joseph  complained  of  Mary's  having  become 
pregnant  in  his  absence,  the  priests  made  each  of 
them  drink  the  water  of  jealousy,  and  both  were  de- 
clared innocent. 

We  have  the  gospel  of  the  Infancy,  attributed  to 
St.  Thomas.  According  to  this  gospel,  Jesus,  at 
five  years  of  age,  amused  himself,  like  other  children 
of  the  same  age,  with  moulding  clay,  and  making  it, 
among  other  things,  into  the  form  of  little  birds. 
He  was  reproved  for  this,  on  which  he  gave  life  to  the 
birds,  and  they  flew  away.  Another  time,  a  little  boy 
having  beaten  him,  was  struck  dead  on  the  spot.  We 
have  also  another  gospel  of  the  Infancy  in  Arabic, 
which  is  much  more  serious. 

We  have  a  gospel  of  Nicodemus.  This  one  seems 
more  worthy  of  attention,  for  we  find  in  it  the  names 
of  those  who  accused  Jesus  before  Pilate.  They 
were  the  principal  men  of  the  synagogue — Ananias, 
Caiaphas,  Sommas,  Damat,  Gamaliel,  Judah,  Neph- 
thalim.  In  this  history  there  are  some  things  that  are 
easy  to  reconcile  with  the  received  gospels,  and 
others  which  are  not  elsewhere  to  be  found.  We 
here  find  that  the  woman  cured  of  a  flux  was  called 
Veronica.  We  also  find  all  that  Jesus  did  in  hell 
when  He  descended  thither.  Then  we  have  the 
two  letters  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Pilate 
to  Tiberius  concerning  the  execution  of  Jesus ;  but 
their  bad  Latin  plainly  shows  that  they  are  spurious. 
To  such  a  length  was  this  false  zeal  carried  that  vari- 
ous letters  were  circulated  attributed  to  Jesus  Christ. 


Dictionary.  113 

The  letter  is  still  preserved  which  he  is  said  to  have 
written  to  Abgarus,  king  of  Edessa ;  but,  as  already 
remarked,  there  had  at  that  time  ceased  to  be  a  king 
of  Edessa. 

Fifty  gospels  were  fabricated  and  were  afterwards 
declared  apocryphal.  St.  Luke  himself  tells  us  that 
many  persons  had  composed  gospels.  It  has  been  be- 
lieved that  there  w^as  one  called  the  Eternal  Gospel, 
concerning  which  it  is  said  in  the  Apocalypse,  chap, 
xiv.,  "And  I  saw  another  angel  fly  in  the  midst  of 
heaven,  having  the  everlasting  gospel."  ....  In 
the  thirteenth  century  the  Cordeliers,  abusing  these 
words,  composed  an  "eternal  gospel,"  by  which  the 
reign  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  to  be  substituted  for 
that  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  never  in  the  early  ages  of 
the  church  did  any  book  appear  with  this  title.  Let- 
ters of  the  Virgin  were  likewise  invented,  written  to 
Ignatius  the  martyr,  to  the  people  of  Messina,  and 
others. 

Abdias,  who  immediately  succeeded  the  apostles, 
wrote  their  history,  with  which  he  mixed  up  such 
absurd  fables  that  in  time  these  histories  became 
wholly  discredited,  although  they  had  at  first  a  great 
reputation.  To  Abdias  we  are  indebted  for  the  ac- 
count of  the  contest  between  St.  Peter  and  Simon 
the  magician.  There  was  at  Rome,  in  reality,  a  very 
skilful  mechanic  named  Simon,  who  not  only  made 
things  fly  across  the  stage,  as  we  still  see  done,  but 
moreover  revived  in  his  own  person  the  prodigy  at- 
tributed to  Daedalus.  He  made  himself  wings;  he 
Vol.  7—8 


1 14  Philosophical 

flew ;  and,  like  Icarus,  he  fell.  So  say  Pliny  and 
Suetonius. 

Abdias,  who  was  in  Asia  and  wrote  in  Hebrew, 
tells  us  that  Peter  and  Simon  met  at  Rome  in  the 
reign  of  Nero.  A  young  man,  nearly  related  to  the 
emperor,  died,  and  the  whole  court  begged  that 
Simon  would  raise  him  to  life.  St.  Peter  presented 
himself  to  perform  the  same  operation.  Simon  em- 
ployed all  the  powers  of  his  art,  and  he  seemed  to 
have  succeeded,  for  the  dead  man  moved  his  head. 
"This  is  not  enough,"  cries  Peter;  "the  dead  man 
must  speak ;  let  Simon  leave  the  bedside  and  we 
shall  see  whether  the  young  man  is  alive."  Simon 
went  aside  and  the  deceased  no  longer  stirred,  but 
Peter  brought  him  to  life  with  a  single  word. 

Simon  went  and  complained  to  the  emperor  that 
a  miserable  Galilean  had  taken  upon  himself  to  work 
greater  wonders  than  he.  Simon  was  confronted 
with  Peter  and  they  made  a  trial  of  skill.  "Tell  me," 
said  Simon  to  Peter,  "what  I  am  thinking  of?"  "If," 
returned  Peter,  "the  emperor  will  give  me  a  barley 
loaf,  thou  shalt  find  whether  or  not  I  know  what  thou 
hast  in  thy  heart."  A  loaf  was  given  him ;  Simon 
immediately  caused  two  large  dogs  to  appear  and 
they  wanted  to  devour  it.  Peter  threw  them  the  loaf, 
and  while  they  were  eating  it  he  said :  "Well,  did  I 
not  know  thy  thoughts?  thou  wouldst  have  had  thy 
dogs  devour  me." 

After  this  first  sitting  it  was  proposed  that  Simon 
and  Peter  should  make  a  flving-match,  and  trv  which 


Dictionary.  1 1  r 

could  raise  himself  highest  in  the  air.  Simon  tried 
first;  Peter  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  and  down 
came  Simon  and  broke  his  legs.  This  story  was 
imitated  from  that  which  we  find  in  the  "Sepher 
toldos  Jeschut,"  where  it  is  said  that  Jesus  Himself 
flew,  and  that  Judas,  who  would  have  done  the  same, 
fell  headlong.  Nero,  vexed  that  Peter  had  broken 
his  favorite,  Simon's,  legs,  had  him  crucified  with  his 
head  downwards.  Hence  the  notion  of  St.  Peter's  res- 
idence at  Rome,  the  manner  of  his  execution  and  his 
sepulchre. 

The  same  Abdias  established  the  belief  that  St. 
Thomas  went  and  preached  Christianity  in  India  to 
King  Gondafer,  and  that  he  went  thither  as  an  arch- 
itect. The  number  of  books  of  this  sort,  written  in 
the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  is  prodigious. 

St.  Jerome,  and  even  St.  Augustine,  tell  us  that 
the  letters  of  Seneca  and  St.  Paul  are  quite  authentic. 
In  the  first  of  these  letters  Seneca  hopes  his  brother 
Paul  is  well :  "Bene  te  valere,  f rater,  ciipio."  Paul 
does  not  write  quite  so  good  Latin  as  Seneca:  'T 
received  your  letters  yesterday,"  says  he,  "with  joy." 
— "Litteras  tuas  hilaris  accept." — "And  I  would 
have  answered  them  immediately  had  I  had  the  pres- 
ence of  the  young  man  whom  I  would  have  sent  with 
them." — "Si  prcrsenfiam  juvenis  habuissem."  Un- 
fortunately these  letters,  in  which  one  would  look  for 
instruction,  are  nothing  more  than  compliments. 

All  these  falsehoods,  forged  by  ill-informed  and 
mistakenlv-zealous    Christians,    were    in   no    degree 


Ii6  Philosophical 

prejudicial  to  the  truth  of  Christianity;  they  ob- 
structed not  its  progress ;  on  the  contrary,  they  show 
us  that  the  Christian  society  was  daily  increasing 
and  that  each  member  was  desirous  of  hastening  its 
growth. 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  do  not  tell  us  that  the 
apostles  agreed  on  a  symbol.  Indeed,  if  they  had 
put  together  the  symbol  (the  creed,  as  we  now  call 
it),  St.  Luke  could  not  in  his  history  have  omitted 
this  essential  basis  of  the  Christian  religion.  The 
substance  of  the  creed  is  scattered  through  the  gos- 
pels ;  but  the  articles  were  not  collected  until  long 
after. 

In  short,  our  creed  is,  indisputably,  the  belief  of 
the  apostles ;  but  it  was  not  written  by  them.  Ru- 
finus,  a  priest  of  Aquileia,  is  the  first  who  mentions 
it ;  and  a  homily  attributed  to  St.  Augustine  is  the 
first  record  of  the  supposed  way  in  which  this  creed 
was  made  ;  Peter  saying,  when  they  were  assembled, 
"1  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty" — Andrew, 
"and  in  Jesus  Christ" — James,  "who  was  conceived 
by  the  Holy  Ghost" ;   and  so  of  the  rest. 

This  formula  was  called  in  Greek  symbolos;  and 
in  Latin  collatio.  Only  it  must  be  observed  that  the 
Greek  version  has  it :  "I  believe  in  God  the  Father, 
maker  of  heaven  and  earth."  In  the  Latin,  maker, 
former,  is  rendered  by  "creatorem."  But  afterwards, 
in  translating  the  symbol  of  the  First  Council  of 
Nice,  it  was  rendered  by  "factorem." 

Constantine  assembled  at  Nice,  opposite  Constan- 


Dictionary,  117 

tinople,  the  first  ecumenical  council,  over  which  Ozius 
presided.  The  great  question  touching  the  divinity 
of  Jesus  Christ,  which  so  much  agitated  the  church, 
was  there  decided.  One  party  held  the  opinion  of 
Origen,  who  says  in  his  sixth  chapter  against  Celsus, 
"We  offer  our  prayers  to  God  through  Christ,  who 
holds  the  middle  place  between  natures  created  and 
uncreated ;  who  leads  us  to  the  grace  of  His  Father 
and  presents  our  prayers  to  the  great  God  in  quality 
of  our  high  priest."  These  disputants  also  rest  upon 
many  passages  of  St.  Paul,  some  of  which  they 
quote.  They  depend  particularly  upon  these  words 
of  Jesus  Christ:  "My  Father  is  greater  than  I"; 
and  they  regard  Jesus  as  the  first-born  of  the  crea- 
tion ;  as  a  pure  emanation  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
but  not  precisely  as  God. 

The  other  side,  who  were  orthodox,  produced 
passages  more  conformable  to  the  eternal  divinity  of 
Jesus;  as,  for  example,  the  following:  "My  Father 
and  I  are  one" ;  words  which  their  opponents  inter- 
pret as  signifying :  "My  Father  and  I  have  the  same 
object,  the  same  intention;  I  have  no  other  will  than 
that  of  My  Father."  Alexander,  bishop  of  Alexan- 
dria, and  after  him  Athanasius,  were  at  the  head  of 
the  orthodox ;  and  Eusebius,  bishop  of  Nicomedia, 
with  seventeen  other  bishops,  the  priest  Arius,  and 
many  more  priests,  led  the  party  opposed  to  them. 
The  quarrel  was  at  first  exceedingly  bitter,  as  St. 
Alexander  treated  his  opponents  as  so  many  anti- 
christs. 


1 1 8  Philosophical 

At  last,  after  much  disputation,  the  Holy  Ghost 
decided  in  the  council,  by  the  mouths  of  two  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  bishops,  against  eighteen,  as  follows  : 
"Jesus  is  the  only  Son  of  God ;  begotten  of  the 
Father ;  light  of  hght ;  very  God  of  very  God ;  of 
one  substance  with  the  Father.  We  believe  also  in 
the  Holy  Ghost,"  etc.  Such  was  the  decision  of  the 
council :  and  we  perceive  by  this  fact  how  the  bishops 
carried  it  over  the  simple  priests.  Two  thousand 
persons  of  the  latter  class  were  of  the  opinion  of 
Arius,  according  to  the  account  of  two  patriarchs  of 
Alexandria,  who  have  written  the  annals  of  Alexan- 
dria in  Arabic.  Arius  was  exiled  by  Constantine,  as 
was  Athanasius  soon  after,  when  Arius  was  recalled 
to  Constantinople.  Upon  this  event  St.  Macarius 
prayed  so  vehemently  to  God  to  terminate  the  life  of 
Arius  before  he  could  enter  the  cathedral,  that  God 
heard  his  prayer — Arius  dying  on  his  way  to  church 
in  330.  The  Emperor  Constantine  ended  his  life  in 
2)2,7-  He  placed  his  will  in  the  hands  of  an  Arian 
priest  and  died  in  the  arms  of  the  Arian  leader,  Euse- 
bius,  bishop  of  Nicomedia,  not  receiving  baptism 
until  on  his  deathbed,  and  leaving  a  triumphant,  but 
divided  church.  The  partisans  of  Athanasius  and 
of  Eusebius  carried  on  a  cruel  war ;  and  what  is 
called  Arianism  was  for  a  long  time  established  in  all 
the  provinces  of  the  empire. 

Julian  the  philosopher,  surnamed  the  apostate, 
wished  to  stifle  their  divisions,  but  could  not  suc- 
ceed.   The  second  general  council  was  held  at  Con- 


Dictionary.  1 1 9 

stantinople  in  138 1.  It  was  there  laid  down  that  the 
Council  of  Nice  had  not  decided  quite  correctly  in 
regard  to  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  it  added  to  the  Nicene 
creed  that  "the  Holy  Ghost  was  the  giver  of  life  and 
proceeded  from  the  Father,  and  with  the  Father  and 
Son  is  to  be  worshipped  and  glorified."  It  was  not 
until  towards  the  ninth  century  that  the  Latin  church 
decreed  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeded  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son. 

In  the  year  431,  the  third  council-general,  held  at 
Ephesus,  decided  that  Jesus  had  "two  natures  and 
one  person."  Nestorius,  bishop  of  Constantinople, 
who  maintained  that  the  Virgin  Mary  should  be 
entitled  Mother  of  Christ,  was  called  Judas  by  the 
council ;  and  the  "two  natures"  were  again  confirmed 
by  the  council  of  Chalcedon. 

I  pass  lightly  over  the  following  centuries,  which 
are  sufficiently  known.  Unhappily,  all  these  disputes 
led  to  wars,  and  the  church  was  uniformly  obliged 
to  combat.  God,  in  order  to  exercise  the  patience  of 
the  faithful,  also  allowed  the  Greek  and  Latin 
churches  to  separate  in  the  ninth  century.  He  like- 
wise permitted  in  the  east  no  less  than  twenty-nine 
horrible  schisms  with  the  see  of  Rome. 

If  there  be  about  six  hundred  millions  of  men 
upon  earth,  as  certain  learned  persons  pretend,  the 
holy  Roman  Catholic  church  possesses  scarcely  six- 
teen millions  of  them — about  a  twenty-sixth  part 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  known  world. 


1 20  Philosophical 

CHRISTMAS. 

Every  one  knows  that  this  is  the  feast  of  the 
nativity  of  Jesus.  The  most  ancient  feast  kept  in  the 
church,  after  those  of  Easter  and  Pentecost,  was 
that  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus.  There  were  only  these 
three  feasts,  until  St.  Chrysostom  delivered  his 
homily  on  Pentecost.  We  here  make  no  account  of 
the  feasts  of  the  martyrs,  which  were  of  a  very  in- 
ferior order.  That  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  was 
named  the  Epiphany,  an  imitation  of  the  Greeks,  who 
gave  that  name  to  the  feasts  which  they  held  to  com- 
memorate the  appearance  or  manifestation  of  the 
gods  upon  earth — since  it  was  not  until  after  his  bap- 
tism that  Jesus  began  to  preach  the  gospel. 

We  know  not  whether,  about  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  this  feast  was  solemnized  in  the  Isle  of 
Cyprus  on  the  6th  of  November ;  but  St.  Epiphanius 
maintained  that  Jesus  was  born  on  that  day.  St. 
Clement  of  Alexandria  tells  us  that  the  Basilidians 
held  this  feast  on  the  15th  of  the  month  tybi,  while 
others  held  it  on  the  i  ith  of  the  same  month  ;  that  is, 
it  was  kept  by  some  on  the  loth  of  January,  and  by 
others  on  the  6th ;  the  latter  opinion  is  the  one  now 
adopted.  As  for  the  nativity,  as  neither  the  day  nor 
the  month  nor  the  year  of  it  was  known,  it  was  not 
celebrated. 

According  to  the  remarks  which  we  find  appended 
to  the  works  of  the  same  father,  they  who  have  been 
the  most  curious  in  their  researches  concerning  the 


Dictionary.  121 

day  on  which  Jesus  was  bornj  some  said  that  it  was 
on  the  25th  of  the  Egyptian  month  pachon,  answer- 
ing to  the  20th  of  May ;  others  that  it  was  the  24th 
or  25th  of  pharmuihi,  corresponding  to  the  19th  and 
20th  of  April.  The  learned  M.  de  Beausobre  says 
that  these  latter  were  the  days  of  St.  Valentine.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  Egypt  and  the  East  kept  the  feast  of 
the  birth  of  Jesus  on  the  6th  of  January,  the  same 
day  as  that  of  His  baptism ;  without  it  being  known 
(at  least  with  certainty)  when,  or  for  what  reason, 
this  custom  commenced. 

The  opinion  and  practice  of  the  western  nations 
were  quite  different  from  those  of  the  east.  The 
centuriators  of  Magdeburg  repeat  a  passage  in 
Theophilus  of  Csesarea,  which  makes  the  churches  of 
Gaul  say  :  "Since  the  birth  of  Christ  is  celebrated  on 
the  25th  of  December,  on  whatever  day  of  the  week 
it  may  fall,  so  also  should  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
be  celebrated  on  the  25th  of  March,  whatever  day  of 
the  week  it  may  be,  the  Lord  having  risen  again  on 
that  day." 

If  this  be  true,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the 
bishops  of  Gaul  were  very  prudent  and  very  reason- 
able. Being  persuaded,  as  all  the  ancients  were,  that 
Jesus  had  been  crucified  on  the  23d  of  March,  and 
had  risen  again  on  the  25th,  they  commemorated  His 
death  on  the  23d  and  His  resurrection  on  the  25th, 
without  paying  any  regard  to  the  observance  of  the 
full  moon,  which  was  originally  a  Jewish  ceremony, 
and  without  confining  themselves  to  the  Sundav. 


122  Philosophical 

Had  the  church  imitated  them,  she  would  have 
avoided  the  long  and  scandalous  disputes  which 
nearly  separated  the  East  from  the  West,  and  were 
not  terminated  until  the  First  Council  of  Nice. 

Some  of  the  learned  conjecture  that  the  Romans 
chose  the  winter  solstice  for  holding  the  birth  of 
Jesus,  because  the  sun  then  begins  again  to  approach 
our  hemisphere.  In  Julius  Caesar's  time  the  civil  and 
political  solstice  was  fixed  for  the  25th  of  December. 
This  at  Rome  was  a  festival  in  celebration  of  the  re- 
turning sun.  Pliny  tells  us  that  it  was  called  bruina; 
and,  like  Servius,  places  it  on  the  8th  of  the  calends 
of  January.  This  association  might  have  some  con- 
nection with  the  choice  of  the  day.  but  it  was  not  the 
origin  of  it.  A  passage  in  Josephus  (evidently 
forged),  three  or  four  errors  of  the  ancients,  and  a 
very  mystical  explanation  of  a  saying  of  St.  John 
the  Baptist,  determined  this  choice,  as  Joseph  Scal- 
iger  is  about  to  inform  us. 

It  pleased  the  ancients  (says  that  learned  critic) 
to  suppose — first,  that  Zacharias  was  sovereign  sac- 
rificer  when  Jesus  was  born.  But  nothing  is  more 
untrue ;  it  is  no  longer  believed  by  any  one,  at  least 
among  those  of  any  information. 

Secondly — the  ancients  supposed  that  Zacharias 
was  in  the  holy  of  holies,  offering  incense,  when  the 
angel  appeared  to  him  and  announced  the  birth  of 
a  son. 

Thirdly — as  the  sovereign  sacrificer  entered  the 
temple  but  once  a  year,  on  the  day  of  expiation,  which 


Dictionary.  123 

was  the  loth  of  the  Jewish  month  rifri,  partly  answer- 
ing to  the  month  of  September,  the  ancients  supposed 
that  it  was  the  27th  ;  and  that  afterzvards,  on  the  23d 
or  24th,  Zacharias  having  returned  home  after  the 
feast,  EHzabeth,  his  wife,  conceived  John  the  Baptist ; 
when  the  feast  of  the  conception  of  that  saint  was 
fixed  for  those  days.  As  women  ordinarily  go  with 
child  for  two  hundred  and  seventy  or  two  hundred 
and  seventy-four  days,  it  followed  that  the  nativity 
of  John  was  fixed  for  the  24th  of  June.  Such  was 
the  origin  of  St.  John's  day,  and  of  Christmas  day, 
which  was  regulated  by  it. 

Fourthly — it  was  supposed  that  there  were  six 
entire  months  between  the  conception  of  John  the 
Baptist  and  that  of  Jesus ;  although  the  angel  sim- 
ply tells  Mary  that  Elizabeth  was  then  in  the  sixth 
month  of  her  pregnancy ;  consequently  the  concep- 
tion of  Jesus  was  fixed  for  the  25th  of  March ;  and 
from  these  various  suppositions  it  was  concluded 
that  Jesus  must  have  been  born  on  the  25th  of  De- 
cember, precisely  nine  months  after  his  conception. 

There  are  many  wonderful  things  in  these  ar- 
rangements. It  is  not  one  of  the  least  worthy  of  ad- 
miration, that  the  four  cardinal  points  of  the  year — 
the  equinoxes  and  the  solstices,  as  they  were  then 
fixed — were  marked  by  the  conceptions  and  births  of 
John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus.  But  it  is  yet  more  mar- 
vellous and  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  solstice  when 
Jesus  was  born  is  that  at  which  the  days  begin  to 
increase ;  while  that  on  which  John  the  Baptist  came 


1 24  Philosophical 

into  the  world  was  the  period  at  which  they  begin  to 
shorten.  The  holy  forerunner  had  intimated  this 
in  a  very  mystical  manner,  when  speaking  of  Jesus, 
in  these  words :  "He  must  grow,  and  I  must  become 
less." 

Prudentius  alludes  to  this  in  a  hymn  on  the  nativ- 
ity of  our  Lord.  Yet  St.  Leo  says  that  in  his  time 
there  were  persons  in  Rome  who  said  the  feast  was 
venerable,  not  so  much  on  account  of  the  birth  of 
Jesus  as  of  the  return,  and,  as  they  expressed 
it,  the  new  birth  of  the  sun.  St.  Epiphanius  assures 
us  it  was  fully  established  that  Jesus  was  born  on 
the  6th  of  January ;  but  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
much  more  ancient  and  more  learned  than  he,  fixes  the 
birth  on  the  i8th  of  November,  of  the  twenty-eighth 
year  of  Augustus.  This  is  deduced,  according  to  the 
Jesuit  Petau's  remark  on  St.  Epiphanius,  from  these 
words  of  St.  Clement:  "The  whole  time  from  the 
birth  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  death  of  Commodus  was 
a  hundred  and  ninety-four  years,  one  month  and 
thirteen  days."  Now  Commodus  died,  according  to 
Petau,  on  the  last  of  December,  in  the  year  192  of 
our  era ;  therefore,  according  to  St.  Clement,  Jesus 
was  born  one  month  and  thirteen  days  before 
the  last  of  December;  consequently,  on  the  i8th 
of  November,  in  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  the 
reign  of  Augustus.  Concerning  which  it  must  be 
observed  that  St.  Clement  dates  the  reign  of  Au- 
gustus only  from  the  death  of  Antony  and  the  cap- 
ture of  Alexandria,  because  it  was  not  until  then  that 


Dictionary.  125 

Augustus  was  left  the  sole  master  of  the  empire. 
Thus  we  are  no  more  assured  of  the  year  of  this 
birth  than  we  are  of  the  month  or  the  day.  Though 
St.  Luke  declares,  "that  He  had  perfect  understand- 
ing of  all  things  from  the  very  first,"  he  clearly 
shows  that  he  did  not  know  the  exact  age  of  Jesus 
when  He  says  that,  when  baptized,  He  "began  to  be 
about  thirty  years  old."  Indeed,  this  evangelist 
makes  Jesus  born  in  the  year  of  the  numbering 
which,  according  to  him,  was  made  by  Cyrenus  or 
Cyrenius,  governor  of  Syria;  while,  according  to 
Tertullian,  it  was  made  by  Sentius  Saturninus.  But 
Saturninus  had  quitted  the  province  in  the  last  year 
of  Herod,  and,  as  Tacitus  informs  us,  was  succeeded 
by  Ouintilius  Varus  ;  and  Publius  Sulpicius  Quirinus 
or  Ouirinius,  of  whom  it  would  seem  St.  Luke  means 
to  speak,  did  not  succeed  Ouintilius  Varus  until  about 
ten  years  after  Herod's  death,  when  Archelaus,  king 
of  Judaea,  was  banished  by  Augustus,  as  Josephus 
tells  us  in  his  "Jewish  Antiquities." 

It  is  true  that  Tertullian,  and  St.  Justin  before 
him,  referred  the  pagans  and  the  heretics  of  their  time 
to  the  public  archives  containing  the  registers  of  this 
pretended  numbering;  but  Tertullian  likewise  re- 
ferred to  the  public  archives  for  the  account  of  the 
darkness  at  noonday  at  the  time  of  the  passion  of 
Jesus,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  article  on  "Eclipse" ; 
where  we  have  remarked  the  want  of  exactness  in 
these  two  fathers,  and  in  similar  authorities,  in  our 
observations  on  a  statue  which  St.  Justin — who  as- 


126  Philosophical 

sures  us  that  he  saw  it  at  Rome — says  was  dedicated 
to  Simon  the  magician,  but  which  was  in  reality  dedi- 
cated to  a  god  of  the  ancient  Sabines. 

These  uncertainties,  however,  will  excite  no  as- 
tonishment when  it  is  recollected  that  Jesus  was  un- 
known to  His  disciples  until  He  had  received  bap- 
tism from  John.  It  is  expressly,  "beginning  with 
the  baptism  of  Jesus,"  that  Peter  will  have  the  suc- 
cessor of  Judas  testify  concerning  Jesus ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  same  Acts,  Peter  thereby  understands 
the  whole  time  that  Jesus  had  lived  with  them. 

CHRONOLOGY. 

The  world  has  long  disputed  about  ancient  chro- 
nology ;  but  has  there  ever  been  any  ?  Every  con- 
siderable people  must  necessarily  possess  and  pre- 
serve authentic,  well-attested  registers.  But  how 
few  people  were  acquainted  with  the  art  of  writing? 
and,  among  the  small  number  of  men  who  cultivated 
this  very  rare  art,  are  any  to  be  found  who  took  the 
trouble  to  mark  two  dates  with  exactness  ? 

We  have,  indeed,  in  very  recent  times  the  astro- 
nomical observations  of  the  Chinese  and  the  Chal- 
daeans.  They  only  go  back  about  two  thousand 
years,  more  or  less,  beyond  our  era.  But  when  the 
early  annals  of  a  nation  confine  themselves  simply  to 
communicating  the  information  that  there  was  an 
eclipse  in  the  reign  of  a  certain  prince,  we  learn,  cer- 
tainly, that  such  a  prince  existed,  but  not  what  he 
performed. 


Dictionary.  127 

]\Ioreover,  the  Chinese  reckon  the  year  in  which 
an  emperor  dies  as  still  constituting  a  part  of  his 
reign,  until  the  end  of  it;  even  though  he  should 
die  the  first  day  of  the  year,  his  successor  dates  the 
year  following  his  death  with  the  name  of  his  pre- 
decessor. It  is  not  possible  to  show  more  respect 
for  ancestors ;  nor  is  it  possible  to  compute  time 
in  a  manner  more  injudicious  in  comparison  with 
modern  nations. 

We  may  add  that  the  Chinese  do  not  commence 
their  sexagenary  cycle,  into  which  they  have  intro- 
duced arrangement,  till  the  reign  of  the  Emperor 
lao,  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  fifty-seven 
years  before  our  vulgar  era.  Profound  obscurity 
hangs  over  the  whole  period  of  time  which  pre- 
cedes that  epoch. 

Men  are  generally  contented  with  an  approxi- 
mation— with  the  "pretty  nearly"  in  every  case. 
For  example,  before  the  invention  of  watches, 
people  could  learn  the  time  of  day  or  night  only 
approximately.  In  building,  the  stones  were  pretty 
nearly  hewn  to  a  certain  shape,  the  timber  pretty 
nearly  squared,  and  the  limbs  of  the  statue  pretty 
nearly  chipped  to  a  proper  finish ;  a  man  was  only 
pretty  nearly  acquainted  with  his  nearest  neighbors ; 
and,  notwithstanding  the  perfection  we  have  our- 
selves attained,  such  is  the  state  of  things  at  present 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  world. 

Let  us  not  then  be  astonished  that  there  is  no- 
where to  be   found  a  correct  ancient  chronology. 


128  Philosophical 

That  which  we  have  of  the  Chinese  is  of  considera- 
ble value,  when  compared  with  the  chronological 
labors  of  other  nations.  We  have  none  of  the  In- 
dians, nor  of  the  Persians,  and  scarcely  any  of  the 
ancient  Eg\'ptians.  All  our  systems  formed  on  the 
history  of  these  people  are  as  contradictory  as  our 
systems  of  metaphysics. 

The  Greek  Olympiads  do  not  commence  till 
seven  hundred  and  twenty-eight  years  before  our 
era  of  reckoning.  Until  we  arrive  at  them,  we  per- 
ceive only  a  few  torches  to  lighten  the  darkness, 
such  as  the  era  of  Nabonassar,  the  war  between 
Lacedsemon  and  Messene ;  even  those  epochs  them- 
selves are  subjects  of  dispute. 

Livy  took  care  not  to  state  in  what  year  Romu- 
lus began  his  pretended  reign.  The  Romans,  who 
well  knew  the  uncertainty  of  that  epoch,  would  have 
ridiculed  him  had  he  undertaken  to  decide  it.  It 
is  proved  that  the  duration  of  two  hundred  and 
forty  years  ascribed  to  the  seven  first  kings  of 
Rome  is  a  very  false  calculation.  The  first  four 
centuries  of  Rome  are  absolutely  destitute  of  chron- 
')log5\ 

If  four  centuries  of  the  most  memorable  empire 
the  world  ever  saw  comprise  only  an  undigested 
mass  of  events,  mixed  up  with  fables,  and  almost 
without  a  date,  what  must  be  the  case  with  small 
nations,  shut  up  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  earth, 
that  have  never  made  any  figure  in  the  world,  not- 
withstanding all  their  attempts  to  compensate,  by 


Dictionary.  129 

prodigy  and  imposture,  for  their  deficiency  in  real 
power  and  cultivation? 

Of  the  Vanity  of  Systems,  Particularly  in 
Chronology. 

The  Abbe  Condillac  performed  a  most  important 
service  to  the  human  mind  when  he  displayed  the 
false  points  of  all  systems.  If  we  may  ever  hope 
that  we  shall  one  day  find  the  road  to  truth,  it  can 
only  be  after  we  have  detected  all  those  which  lead 
to  error.  It  is  at  least  a  consolation  to  be  at  rest, 
to  be  no  longer  seeking,  when  we  perceive  that  so 
many  philosophers  have  sought  in  vain. 

Chronology  is  a  collection  of  bladders  of  wind. 
All  who  thought  to  pass  over  it  as  solid  ground 
have  been  immersed.  We  have,  at  the  present  time, 
twenty-four  systems,  not  one  of  which  is  true. 

The  Babylonians  said,  "We  reckon  four  hundred 
and  seventy-three  thousand  years  of  astronomical 
observations."  A  Parisian,  addressing  him,  says, 
''Your  account  is  correct ;  your  years  consisted  each 
of  a  solar  day ;  they  amount  to  twelve  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  of  ours,  from  the  time  of  Atlas,  the 
great  astronomer,  king  of  Africa,  till  the  arrival  of 
Alexander  at  Babylon." 

But,  whatever  our  Parisian  may  say,  no  people 
in  the  world  have  ever  confounded  a  day  with  a 
year;  and  the  people  of  Babylon  still  less  than 
any  other.  This  Parisian  stranger  should  have  con- 
tented himself  with  merely  observing  to  the  Chaldae- 
Vol.  7 — 9 


130  Philosophical 

ans :  "You  are  exaggerators,  and  our  ancestors 
were  ignorant.  Nations  are  exposed  to  too  many 
revolutions  to  permit  their  keeping  a  series  of  four 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  thirty-six  centuries  of 
astronomical  calculations.  And,  with  respect  to 
Atlas,  king  of  the  Moors,  no  one  knows  at  what 
time  he  lived.  Pythagoras  might  pretend  to  have 
been  a  cock,  just  as  reasonably  as  you  may  boast  of 
such  a  series  of  observations." 

The  great  point  of  ridicule  in  all  fantastic  chron- 
ologies is  the  arrangement  of  all  the  great  events 
of  a  man's  life  in  precise  order  of  time,  without 
ascertaining  that  the  man  himself  ever  existed. 
Lenglet  repeats  after  others,  in  his  chronological 
compilation  of  universal  history,  that  precisely  in 
the  time  of  Abraham,  and  six  years  after  the  death 
of  Sarah,  who  was  little  known  to  the  Greeks, 
Jupiter,  at  the  age  of  sixty-two,  began  to  reign  in 
Thessaly ;  that  his  reign  lasted  sixty  years ;  that 
he  married  his  sister  Juno ;  that  he  was  obliged  to 
cede  the  maritime  coasts  to  his  brother  Neptune ; 
and  that  the  Titans  made  war  against  him.  But  was 
there  ever  a  Jupiter  ?  It  never  occurred  to  him  that 
with  this  question  he  should  have  begun. 

CHURCH. 

Summary  of  the  History  of  the  Christian  Church. 

We  shall  not  extend  our  views  into  the  depths 
of  theology.    God  preserve  us  from  such  presump- 


Dictionary.  131 

tion.  Humble  faith  alone  is  enough  for  us.  We 
never  assume  any  other  part  than  that  of  mere  his- 
torians. 

In  the  years  that  immediately  followed  Jesus 
Christ,  who  was  at  once  God  and  man,  there  ex- 
isted among  the  Hebrews  nine  religious  schools  or 
societies — Pharisees,  Sadducees,  Essenians,  Judah- 
ites,  Therapeutse,  Rechabites,  Herodians,  the  dis- 
ciples of  John,  and  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  named  the 
"brethren,"  the  "Galileans,"  the  "believers,"  who 
did  not  assume  the  name  of  Christians  till  about 
the  sixteenth  year  of  our  era,  at  Antioch ;  being 
directed  to  its  adoption  by  God  himself,  in  ways  un- 
known to  men.  The  Pharisees  believed  in  the 
metempsychosis.  The  Sadducees  denied  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  and  the  existence  of  spirits, 
yet  believed  in  the  Pentateuch. 

Pliny,  the  naturalist — relying,  evidently,  on  the 
authority  of  Flavins  Josephus — calls  the  Essenians 
"gens  ceterna  in  qua  nemo  nascitur" — "a  perpetual 
family,  in  which  no  one  is  ever  born" — because  the 
Essenians  very  rarely  married.  The  description 
has  been  since  applied  to  our  monks. 

It  is  difficult  to  decide  whether  the  Essenians  or 
the  Judahites  are  spoken  of  by  Josephus  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage :  "They  despise  the  evils  of  the 
world ;  their  constancy  enables  them  to  triumph 
over  torments ;  in  an  honorable  cause,  they  prefer 
death  to  life.  They  have  undergone  fire  and  sword, 
and  submitted  to  having  their  very  bones  crushed, 


132  Philosophical 

rather  than  utter  a  syllable  against  their  legislator, 
or  eat  forbidden  food." 

It  would  seem,  from  the  words  of  Josephus,  that 
the  foregoing  portrait  applies  to  the  Judahites,  and 
not  to  the  Essenians.  "Judas  was  the  author  of  a 
new  sect,  completely  different  from  the  other  three ;" 
that  is,  the  Sadducees,  the  Pharisees,  and  the 
Essenians.  "They  are,"  he  goes  on,  "Jews  by 
nation ;  they  live  in  harmony  with  one  another,  and 
consider  pleasure  to  be  a  vice."  The  natural  mean- 
ing of  this  language  would  induce  us  to  think  that 
he  is  speaking  of  the  Judahites. 

However  that  may  be,  these  Judahites  were  known 
before  the  disciples  of  Christ  began  to  possess  con- 
sideration and  consequence  in  the  world.  Some 
weak  people  have  supposed  them  to  be  heretics,  who 
adored  Judas  Iscariot. 

The  Therapeutae  were  a  society  different  from  the 
Essenians  and  the  Judahites.  They  resembled  the 
Gymnosophists  and  Brahmins  of  India.  "They  pos- 
sess," says  Philo,  "a  principle  of  divine  love  which 
excites  in  them  an  enthusiasm  like  that  of  the  Bac- 
chantes and  the  Corybantes,  and  which  forms  them 
to  that  state  of  contemplation  to  which  they  aspire. 
This  sect  originated  in  Alexandria,  which  was  en- 
tirely filled  with  Jews,  and  prevailed  greatly 
throughout  Egypt."  The  Rechabites  still  continued 
as  a  sect.  They  vowed  never  to  drink  wine ;  and 
it  is,  possibly,  from  their  example  that  Mahomet 
forbade  that  liquor  to  his  followers. 


Dictionary.  133 

The  Herodians  regarded  Herod,  the  first  of  that 
name,  as  a  Messiah,  a  messenger  from  God,  who 
had  rebuih  the  temple.  It  is  clear  that  the  Jews  at 
Rome  celebrated  a  festival  in  honor  of  him,  in  the 
reign  of  Nero,  as  appears  from  the  lines  of  Persius : 
"'Herodis  venere  dies,"  etc.     (Sat.  v.  180.) 

"King  Herod's  feast,  when  each  Judsean  vile, 
Trims  up  his  lamp  with  tallow  or  with  oil." 

The  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist  had  spread 
themselves  a  little  in  Egypt,  but  principally  in  Syria, 
Arabia,  and  towards  the  Persian  gulf.  They  are 
recognized,  at  the  present  day,  under  the  name  of 
the  Christians  of  St.  John.  There  were  some  also 
in  Asia  Minor.  It  is  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  (chap.  xix. )  that  Paul  met  with  many  of 
them  at  Ephesus.  "Have  you  received,"  he  asked 
them,  "the  holy  spirit  ?"  They  answered  him.  "We 
have  not  heard  even  that  there  is  a  holy  spirit." 
"What  baptism,  then,"  says  he,  "have  you  re- 
ceived?" They  answered  him,  "The  baptism  of 
John." 

In  the  meantime  the  true  Christians,  as  is  well 
known,  were  laying  the  foundation  of  the  only  true 
religion.  He  who  contributed  most  to  strengthen 
this  rising  society,  was  Paul,  who  had  himself  perse- 
cuted it  with  the  greatest  violence.  He  was  born 
at  Tarsus  in  Cilicia,  and  was  educated  under  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  professors  among  the  Phari- 
sees— Gamaliel,  a  disciple  of  Hillel.  The  Jews  pre- 
tend that  he  quarrelled  with  Gamaliel,  who  refused 


134  Philosophical 

to  let  him  have  his  daughter  in  marriage.  Some 
traces  of  this  anecdote  are  to  be  found  in  the  sequel 
to  the  "Acts  of  St.  Thekla."  These  acts  relate  that 
he  had  a  large  forehead,  a  bald  head,  united  eye- 
brows, an  aquiline  nose,  a  short  and  clumsy  figure, 
and  crooked  legs.  Lucian,  in  his  dialogue  "Philo- 
patrcs,"  seems  to  give  a  very  similar  portrait  of 
him.  It  has  been  doubted  whether  he  was  a  Roman 
citizen,  for  at  that  time  the  title  was  not  given  to 
any  Jew ;  they  had  been  expelled  from  Rome  by 
Tiberius ;  and  Tarsus  did  not  become  a  Roman 
colony  till  nearly  a  hundred  years  afterwards,  under 
Caracalla ;  as  Cellarius  remarks  in  his  "Geography" 
(book  iii.),  and  Grotius  in  his  "Commentary  on  the 
Acts,"  to  whom  alone  we  need  refer. 

God,  who  came  down  upon  earth  to  be  an  ex- 
ample in  it  of  humanity  and  poverty,  gave  to  his 
church  the  most  feeble  infancy,  and  conducted  it  in 
a  state  of  humiliation  similar  to  that  in  which  he 
had  himself  chosen  to  be  born.  All  the  first  be- 
lievers were  obscure  persons.  They  labored  with 
their  hands.  The  apostle  St.  Paul  himself  ac- 
knowledges that  he  gained  his  livelihood  by  making 
tents.  St.  Peter  raised  from  the  dead  Dorcas,  a 
sempstress,  who  made  clothes  for  the  "brethren." 
Tlie  assembly  of  believers  met  at  Joppa,  at  the  house 
of  a  tanner  called  Simon,  as  appears  from  the  ninth 
chapter  of  the  "Acts  of  the  Apostles." 

The  believers  spread  themselves  secretly  in 
Greece ;    and  some  of  them  went  from  Greece  to 


Dictionary.  135 

Rome,  among  the  Jews,  who  were  permitted  by  the 
Romans  to  have  a  synagogue.  They  did  not,  at 
first,  separate  themselves  from  the  Jews.  They 
practised  circumcision ;  and,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
remarked,  the  first  fifteen  obscure  bishops  of  Jeru- 
salem were  all  circumcised,  or  at  least  were  all  of 
the  Jewish  nation. 

When  the  apostle  Paul  took  with  him  Timothy, 
who  was  the  son  of  a  heathen  father,  he  circumcised 
him  himself,  in  the  small  city  of  Lystra.  But  Titus, 
his  other  disciple,  could  not  be  induced  to  submit  to 
circumcision.  The  brethren,  or  the  disciples  of 
Jesus,  continued  united  with  the  Jews  until  the  time 
when  St.  Paul  experienced  a  persecution  at  Jeru- 
salem, on  account  of  his  having  introduced  strangers 
into  the  temple.  He  was  accused  by  the  Jews  of 
endeavoring  to  destroy  the  law  of  Moses  by  that  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  was  with  a  view  to  his  clearing 
himself  from  this  accusation  that  the  apostle  St. 
James  proposed  to  the  apostle  Paul  that  he  should 
shave  his  head,  and  go  and  purify  himself  in  the 
temple,  with  four  Jews,  who  had  made  a  vow  of 
being  shaved.  "Take  them  with  you,"  says  James 
to  him  (Acts  of  the  Apostles  xxi.),  "purify  your- 
self with  them,  and  let  the  whole  world  know  that 
what  has  been  reported  concerning  you  is  false,  and 
that  you  continue  to  obey  the  law  of  Moses."  Thus, 
then,  Paul^  who  had  been  at  first  the  most  summary 
persecutor  of  the  holy  society  established  by  Jesus — 
Paul,  who  afterwards  endeavored  to  govern  that 


136  Philosophical 

rising  society — Paul  the  Christian,  Judaizes,  "that 
the  world  may  know  that  he  is  calumniated  when 
he  is  charged  with  no  longer  following  the  law  of 
Moses." 

St.  Paul  was  equally  charged  with  impiety  and 
heresy,  and  the  persecution  against  him  lasted  a 
long  time ;  but  it  is  perfectly  clear,  from  the  nature 
of  the  charges,  that  he  had  travelled  to  Jerusalem 
in  order  to  fulfil  the  rites  of  Judaism. 

He  addressed  to  Faustus  these  words :  "I  have 
never  offended  against  the  Jewish  law,  nor  against 
the  temple."  (Acts  xxv.)  The  apostles  announced 
Jesus  Christ  as  a  just  man  wickedly  persecuted,  a 
prophet  of  God,  a  son  of  God,  sent  to  the  Jews 
for  the  reformation  of  manners. 

"Circumcision,"  says  the  apostle  Paul,  "  is  good, 
if  you  observe  the  law ;  but  if  you  violate  the  law, 
your  circumcision  becomes  uncircumcision.  If  any 
uncircumcised  person  keep  the  law,  he  will  be  as 
if  circumcised.  The  true  Jew  is  one  that  is  so  in- 
wardly." 

When  this  apostle  speaks  of  Jesus  Christ  in  his 
epistles,  he  does  not  reveal  the  ineffable  mystery  of 
his  consubstantiality  with  God.  "We  are  delivered 
by  him,"  says  he,  "from  the  wrath  of  God.  The 
gift  of  God  hath  been  shed  upon  us  by  the  grace 
bestowed  on  one  man,  who  is  Jesus  Christ.  ,  .  . 
Death  reigned  through  the  sin  of  one  man  ;  the  just 
shall  reign  in  life  by  one  man,  who  is  Jesus  Christ." 
(Romans  v.) 


Dictionary.  ijy 

And,  in  the  eighth  chapter:  "We  are  heirs  of 
God,  and  joint-heirs  of  Christ;"  and  in  the  sixteenth 
chapter :   "To  God,  who  is  the  only  wise,  be  honor 

and    glory   through   Jesus    Christ You   are 

Jesus  Christ's,  and  Jesus  Christ  is  God's."  ( i  Cor. 
chap,  iii.) 

And,  in  i  Cor.  xv.  27 :  "Everything  is  made  sub- 
ject to  him,  undoubtedly,  excepting  God,  who  made 
all  things  subject  to  him." 

Some  difficulty  has  been  found  in  explaining  the 
following  part  of  the  Epistle  of  the  Philippians: 
"Do  nothing  through  vain  glory.  Let  each  humbly 
think  others  better  than  himself.  Be  of  the  same 
mind  with  Jesus  Christ,  who,  being  in  the  likeness 
of  God,  assumed  not  to  equal  himself  to  God."  This 
passage  appears  exceedingly  well  investigated  and 
elucidated  in  a  letter,  still  extant,  of  the  churches  of 
Vienna  and  Lyons,  written  in  the  year  117,  and 
which  is  a  valuable  monument  of  antiquity.  In  this 
letter  the  modesty  of  some  believers  is  praised. 
"They  did  not  wish,"  says  the  letter,  "to  assume  the 
lofty  title  of  martyrs,  in  consequence  of  certain 
tribulations ;  after  the  example  of  Jesus  Christ, 
who,  being  in  the  likeness  of  God,  did  not  assume 
the  quality  of  being  equal  to  God."  Origen,  also, 
in  his  commentary  on  John,  says :  "The  greatness 
of  Jesus  shines  out  more  splendidly  in  consequence 
of  his  self-humiliation  than  if  he  had  assumed 
equality  with  God."  In  fact,  the  opposite  interpre- 
tation  would   be   a   solecism.     What   sense   would 


138  Philosophical 

there  be  in  this  exhortation  :  "Think  others  superior 
to  yourselves ;  imitate  Jesus,  who  did  not  think  it 
an  assumption  to  be  equal  to  God?"  It  would  be 
an  obvious  contradiction ;  it  would  be  putting  an 
example  of  full  pretension  for  an  example  of 
modesty  ;  it  would  be  an  offence  against  logic. 

Thus  did  the  wisdom  of  the  apostles  establish 
the  rising  church.  That  wisdom  did  not  change  its 
character  in  consequence  of  the  dispute  which  took 
place  between  the  apostles  Peter,  James,  and  John, 
on  one  side,  and  Paul  on  the  other.  This  contest 
occurred  at  Antioch.  The  apostle  Peter — formerly 
Cephas,  or  Simon  Bar  Jona — ate  with  the  converted 
Gentiles,  and  among  them  did  not  observe  the  cere- 
monies of  the  law  and  the  distinction  of  meats.  He 
and  Barnabas,  and  the  other  disciples,  ate  indiffer- 
ently of  pork,  of  animals  which  had  been  strangled, 
or  which  had  cloven  feet;,  or  which  did  not  chew  the 
cud ;  but  many  Jewish  Christians  having  arrived, 
St.  Peter  joined  with  them  in  abstinence  from  for- 
bidden meats,  and  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  Mosaic 
law. 

This  conduct  appeared  very  prudent ;  he  wished 
to  avoid  giving  offence  to  the  Jewish  Christians, 
his  companions ;  but  St.  Paul  attacked  him  on  the 
subject  with  considerable  severity.  "I  withstood 
him,"  says  he,  "to  his  face,  because  he  was  blam- 
able."     (Gal.  chap,  ii.) 

This  quarrel  appears  most  extraordinary  on  the 
part  of  St.  Paul.    Having  been  at  first  a  persecutor, 


Dictionary.  139 

he  might  have  been  expected  to  have  acted  with 
moderation ;  especially  as  he  had  gone  to  Jerusalem 
to  sacrifice  in  the  temple,  had  circumcised  his  dis- 
ciple Timothy,  and  strictly  complied  with  the  Jew- 
ish rites,  for  which  very  compliance  he  now  re- 
proached Cephas.  St.  Jerome  imagines  that  this 
quarrel  between  Paul  and  Cephas  was  a  pretended 
one.  He  says,  in  his  first  homily  (vol.  iii.)  that  they 
acted  like  two  advocates,  who  had  worked  them- 
selves up  to  an  appearance  of  great  zeal  and  exasper- 
ation against  each  other,  to  gain  credit  with  their 
respective  clients.  He  says  that  Peter — Cephas — 
being  appointed  to  preach  to  the  Jews,  and  Paul  to 
the  Gentiles,  they  assumed  the  appearance  of  quar- 
relling— Paul  to  gain  the  Gentiles,  and  Peter  to 
gain  the  Jews.  But  St.  Augustine  is  by  no  means 
of  the  same  opinion.  "I  grieve,"  says  he,  in  his 
epistle  to  Jerome,  "that  so  great  a  man  should  be 
the  patron  of  a  lie." — (patronum  mendacii). 

This  dispute  between  St.  Jerome  and  St.  Au- 
gustine ought  not  to  diminish  our  veneration  for 
them,  and  still  less  for  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter.  As 
to  what  remains,  if  Peter  was  destined  for  the  Jews, 
who  were,  after  their  conversion,  likely  to  Judaizc, 
and  Paul  for  strangers,  it  appears  probable  that 
Peter  never  went  to  Rome.  The  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  makes  no  mention  of  Peter's  journey  to 
Italy. 

However  that  may  be,  it  was  about  the  sixtieth 
year  of  our  era  that  Christians  began  to  separate 


140  Philosophical 

from  the  Jewish  communion ;  and  it  was  this  which 
drew  upon  them  so  many  quarrels  and  persecutions 
from  the  various  synagogues  of  Rome,  Greece, 
Egypt,  and  Asia.  They  were  accused  of  impiety 
and  atheism  by  their  Jewish  brethren,  who  excom- 
municated them  in  their  synagogues  three  times 
every  Sabbath-day.  But  in  the  midst  of  their  per- 
secutions God  always  supported  them. 

By  degrees  many  churches  were  formed,  and  the 
separation  between  Jews  and  Christians  was  com- 
plete before  the  close  of  the  first  century.  This 
separation  was  unknown  to  the  Roman  government. 
Neither  the  senate  nor  the  emperors  of  Rome  in- 
terested themselves  in  those  quarrels  of  a  small 
flock  of  mankind,  which  God  had  hitherto  guided 
in  obscurity,  and  which  he  exalted  by  insensible 
gradations. 

Christianity  became  established  in  Greece  and  at 
Alexandria.  The  Christians  had  there  to  contend 
with  a  new  set  of  Jews,  who,  in  consequence  of  in- 
tercourse with  the  Greeks,  had  become  philosophers. 
This  was  the  sect  of  gnosis,  or  gnostics.  Among 
them  were  some  of  the  new  converts  to  Chris- 
tianity. All  these  sects,  at  that  time,  enjoyed  com- 
plete liberty  to  dogmatize,  discourse,  and  write, 
whenever  the  Jewish  courtiers,  settled  at  Rome  and 
Alexandria,  did  not  bring  any  charge  against  them 
before  the  magistrates.  But,  under  Domitian, 
Christianity  began  to  give  some  umbrage  to  the 
government. 


Dictionary.  141 

The  zeal  of  some  Christians,  which  was  not  ac- 
cording to  knowledge,  did  not  prevent  the  Church 
from  making  that  progress  which  God  destined 
from  the  beginning.  The  Christians,  at  first,  cele- 
brated their  mysteries  in  sequestered  houses,  and 
in  caves,  and  during  the  night.  Hence,  according 
to  Minucius  Felix,  the  title  given  them  of  luci- 
fugaces.  Philo  calls  them  Gesseens.  The  names 
most  frequently  applied  to  them  by  the  heathens, 
during  the  first  four  centuries,  were  "Galileans"  and 
"Nazarenes" ;  but  that  of  "Christians"  has  prevailed 
above  all  others.  Neither  the  hierarchy,  nor  the 
services  of  the  church,  were  established  all  at  once ; 
the  apostolic  times  were  different  from  those  which 
followed. 

The  mass  now  celebrated  at  matins  was  the  sup- 
per performed  in  the  evening ;  these  usages  changed 
in  proportion  as  the  church  strengthened.  A  more 
numerous  society  required  more  regulations,  and 
the  prudence  of  the  pastors  accommodated  itself  to 
times  and  places.  St.  Jerome  and  Eusebius  relate 
that  when  the  churches  received  a  regular  form,  five 
different  orders  might  be  soon  perceived  to  exist 
in  them — superintendents,  cpiscopoi,  whence  orig- 
inate the  bishops ;  elders  of  the  society,  presbyteroi, 
priests,  diaconoi,  servants  or  deacons ;  pistol, 
believers,  the  initiated — that  is,  the  baptized,  who 
participated  in  the  suppers  of  the  agape,  or  love- 
feasts  ;  the  catechumens,  who  were  awaiting  bap- 
tism ;  and  the  energumens,  who  awaited  their  being 


142  Philosophical 

exorcised  of  demons.  In  these  five  orders,  no  one 
had  garments  different  from  the  others,  no  one  was 
bound  to  celibacy ;  witness  Tertullian's  book,  dedi- 
cated to  his  wife ;  and  witness  also  the  example  of 
the  apostles.  No  paintings  or  sculptures  were  to  be 
found  in  their  assemblies  during  the  first  two  cen- 
turies ;  no  altars ;  and,  most  certainly,  no  tapers, 
incense,  and  lustral  water.  The  Christians  carefully 
concealed  their  books  from  the  Gentiles ;  they  in- 
trusted them  only  to  the  initiated.  Even  the  cate- 
chumens were  not  permitted  to  recite  the  Lord's 
prayer. 

Of  the  Pozvcr  of  Expelling  Devils,  Given  to  the 
Church. 

That  which  most  distinguished  the  Christians, 
and  which  has  continued  nearly  to  our  own  times, 
was  the  power  of  expelling  devils  with  the  sign  of 
the  cross.  Origen,  in  his  treaties  against  Celsus, 
declares — at  No.  133 — that  Antinous,  who  had  been 
defied  by  the  emperor  Adrian,  performed  miracles 
in  Egypt  by  the  power  of  charms  and  magic ;  but 
he  says  that  the  devils  came  out  of  the  bodies  of  the 
possessed  on  the  mere  utterance  of  the  name  of 
Jesus. 

Tertullian  goes  farther;  and  from  the  recesses 
of  Africa,  where  he  resided,  he  says,  in  his 
"Apology" — chap,  xxiii. — 'Tf  your  gods  do  not 
confess  themselves  to  be  devils  in  the  presence  of  a 
true  Christian,  we  give  you  full  liberty  to  shed  that 


Dictionary.  143 

Christian's  blood."  Can  any  demonstration  be  pos- 
sibly clearer? 

In  fact,  Jesus  Christ  sent  out  his  apostles  to  expel 
demons.  The  Jews,  likewise,  in  his  time,  had  the 
power  of  expelling  them ;  for,  when  Jesus  had  de- 
livered some  possessed  persons,  and  sent  the  devils 
into  the  bodies  of  a  very  numerous  herd  of  swine, 
and  had  performed  many  other  similar  cures,  the 
Pharisees  said :  "He  expels  devils  through  the 
power  of  Beelzebub."  Jesus  replied :  "By  whom  do 
your  sons  expel  them  ?"  It  is  incontestable  that  the 
Jews  boasted  of  this  power.  They  had  exorcists 
and  exorcisms.  They  invoked  the  name  of  God, 
of  Jacob,  and  of  Abraham.  They  put  consecrated 
herbs  into  the  nostrils  of  the  demoniacs.  Josephus 
relates  a  part  of  these  ceremonies.  This  power  over 
devils,  which  the  Jews  have  lost,  was  transferred  to 
the  Christians,  who  seem  likewise  to  have  lost  it  in 
their  turn. 

The  power  of  expelling  demons  comprehended 
that  of  destroying  the  operations  of  magic ;  for 
magic  has  been  always  prevalent  in  every  nation. 
All  the  fathers  of  the  Church  bear  testimony  to 
magic.  St.  Justin,  in  his  "Apology" — ^book  iii. — 
acknowledges  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  fre- 
quently evoked,  and  thence  draws  an  argument  in 
favor  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Lactantius,  in 
the  seventh  book  of  his  "Divine  Institutions,"  says 
that  "if  any  one  ventured  to  deny  the  existence  of 
souls  after  death,  the  magician  would  convince  him 


144  Philosophical 

of  it  by  making  them  appear."  Irenseus,  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  Tertullian,  Cyprian  the  bishop,  all 
affirm  the  same.  It  is  true  that,  at  present,  all  is 
changed,  and  that  there  are  now  no  more  magicians 
than  there  are  demoniacs.  But  God  has  the  sov- 
ereign power  of  admonishing  mankind  by  prodigies 
at  some  particular  seasons,  and  of  discontinuing 
those  prodigies  at  others. 

Of  the  Martyrs  of  the  Church. 

When  Christians  became  somewhat  numerous, 
and  many  arrayed  themselves  against  the  worship 
established  in  the  Roman  Empire,  the  magistrates 
began  to  exercise  severity  against  them,  and  the  peo- 
ple more  particularly  persecuted  them.  The  Jews, 
who  possessed  particular  privileges,  and  who  con- 
fined themselves  to  their  synagogues,  were  not  per- 
secuted. They  were  permitted  the  free  exercise  of 
their  religion,  as  is  the  case  at  Rome  at  the  present 
day.  All  the  different  kinds  of  worship  scattered 
over  the  empire  were  tolerated,  although  the  senate 
did  not  adopt  them.  But  the  Christians,  declaring 
themselves  enemies  to  every  other  worship  than  their 
own,  and  more  especially  so  to  that  of  the  empire, 
were  often  exposed  to  these  cruel  trials. 

One  of  the  first  and  most  distinguished  martyrs 
was  Ignatius,  bishop  of  Antioch,  who  was  con- 
demned by  the  Emperor  Trajan  himself,  at  that 
time  in  Asia,  and  sent  to  Rome  by  his  orders,  to  be 
exposed  to  wild  beasts,  at  a  time  when  other  Chris- 


Dictionary.  14^ 

tians  were  not  persecuted  at  Rome.  It  is  not  known 
precisely  what  charges  were  alleged  against  him  be- 
fore that  emperor,  otherwise  so  renowned  for  his 
clemency.  St.  Ignatius  must,  necessarily,  have  had 
violent  enemies.  Whatever  were  the  particulars  of 
the  case,  the  history  of  his  martyrdom  relates  that 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  was  found  engraved  on  his 
heart  in  letters  of  gold ;  and  from  this  circumstance 
it  was  that  Christians,  in  some  places,  assumed  the 
name  of  Theophorus,  which  Ignatius  had  given  him- 
self. 

A  letter  of  his  has  been  preserved  in  which  he 
entreats  the  bishops  and  Christians  to  make  no  op- 
position to  his  martyrdom,  whether  at  the  time  they 
might  be  strong  enough  to  effect  his  deliverance,  or 
whether  any  among  them  might  have  influence 
enough  to  obtain  his  pardon.  Another  remarkable 
circumstance  is  that  when  he  was  brought  to  Rome 
the  Christians  of  that  capital  went  to  visit  him ; 
which  would  prove  clearly  that  the  individual  was 
punished  and  not  the  sect. 

The  persecutions  were  not  continued.  Origen,  in 
his  third  book  against  Celsus,  says :  "The  Christians 
who  have  suffered  death  on  account  of  their  re- 
ligion may  easily  be  numbered,  for  there  were  only 
a  few  of  them,  and  merely  at  intervals." 

God  was  so  mindful  of  his  Church  that,  notwith- 
standing its  enemies,  he  so  ordered  circumstances 
that  it  held  five  councils  in  the  first  century,  sixteen 
in  the  second,  and  thirty  in  the  third;   that  is,  in- 

Vol.  7 — 10 


146  Philosophical 

eluding  both  secret  and  tolerated  ones.  Those  as- 
semblies were  sometimes  forbidden,  when  the  weak 
prudence  of  the  magistrates  feared  that  they  might 
become  tumultuous.  But  few  genuine  documents  of 
the  proceedings  before  the  proconsuls  and  praetors 
who  condemned  the  Christians  to  death  have  been 
delivered  down  to  us.  Such  would  be  the  only  au- 
thorities which  would  enable  us  to  ascertain  the 
charges  brought  against  them,  and  the  punishments 
they  suffered. 

We  have  a  fragment  of  Dionysius  of  Alexandria, 
in  which  he  gives  the  following  extract  of  a  register, 
or  of  records,  of  a  proconsul  of  Egypt,  under  the 
Emperor  Valerian:  "Dionysius,  Faustus  Maximus, 
Marcellus,  and  Chseremon,  having  been  admitted  to 
the  audience,  the  prefect  ^^milianus  thus  addressed 
them :  'You  are  sufficiently  informed  through  the 
conferences  which  I  have  had  with  you,  and  all  that 
I  have  written  to  you,  of  the  good-will  which  our 
princes  have  entertained  towards  you.  I  wish  thus 
to  repeat  it  to  you  once  again.  They  make  the 
continuance  of  your  safety  to  depend  upon  your- 
selves, and  place  your  destiny  in  your  own  hands. 
They  require  of  you  only  one  thing,  which  reason 
demands  of  every  reasonable  person — namely,  that 
you  adore  the  gods  who  protect  their  empire,  and 
abandon  that  different  worship,  so  contrary  to  sense 
and  nature.'  " 

Dionysius  replied,  "All  have  not  the  same  gods ; 
and  all  adore  thoee  whom  thev  think  to  be  the  true 


Dictionary.  147 

ones."  The  prefect  ^milianus  replied :  "I  see  clearly 
that  you  ungratefully  abuse  the  goodness  which 
the  emperors  have  shown  you.  This  being  the  case, 
you  shall  no  longer  remain  in  this  city ;  and  I  now 
order  you  to  be  conveyed  to  Cephro,  in  the  heart 
of  Libya.  Agreeably  to  the  command  I  have  re- 
ceived from  your  emperor,  that  shall  be  the  place  of 
your  banishment.  As  to  what  remains,  think  not  to 
hold  your  assemblies  there,  nor  to  offer  up  your 
prayers  in  what  you  call  cemeteries.  This  is  posi- 
tively forbidden.    I  will  permit  it  to  none." 

Nothing  bears  a  stronger  impress  of  truth  than 
this  document.  We  see  from  it  that  there  were 
times  when  assemblies  were  prohibited.  Thus  the 
Calvinists  were  forbidden  to  assemble  in  France. 
Sometimes  ministers  or  preachers,  who  held  assem- 
blies in  violation  of  the  laws,  have  suffered  even  by 
the  altar  and  the  rack;  and  since  1745  six  have 
been  executed  on  the  gallows.  Thus,  in  England 
and  Ireland,  Roman  Catholics  are  forbidden  to  hold 
assemblies ;  and,  on  certain  occasions,  the  delin- 
quents have  suffered  death. 

Notwithstanding  these  prohibitions  declared  by 
the  Roman  laws,  God  inspired  many  of  the  emper- 
ors with  indulgence  towards  the  Christians.  Even 
Diocletian,  whom  the  ignorant  consider  as  a  perse- 
cutor— Diocletian,  the  first  year  of  whose  reign  is 
still  regarded  as  constituting  the  commencement  of 
the  era  of  martyrdom,  was,  for  more  than  eighteen 
years,  the  declared  protector  of  Christianity,   and 


148  Philosophical 

many  Christians  held  offices  of  high  consequence 
about  his  person.  He  even  married  a  Christian ; 
and,  in  Nicomedia,  the  place  of  his  residence,  he 
permitted  a  splendid  church  to  be  erected  opposite 
his  palace. 

The  Caesar  Galerius  having  unfortunately  taken 
up  a  prejudice  against  the  Christians,  of  whom  he 
thought  he  had  reason  to  complain,  influenced  Dio- 
cletian to  destroy  the  cathedral  of  Nicomedia.  One 
of  the  Christians,  with  more  zeal  than  prudence, 
tore  the  edict  of  the  emperor  to  pieces ;  and  hence 
arose  that  famous  persecution,  in  the  course  oi 
which  more  than  two  hundred  persons  were  exe- 
cuted in  the  Roman  Empire,  without  reckoning 
those  whom  the  rage  of  the  common  people,  always 
fanatical  and  always  cruel,  destroyed  without  even 
the  form  of  law. 

So  great  has  been  the  number  of  actual  martyrs 
that  we  should  be  careful  how  we  shake  the  truth  of 
the  history  of  those  genuine  confessors  of  our  holy 
reHgion  by  a  dangerous  mixture  of  fables  and  of 
false  martyrs. 

The  Benedictine  Prior  (Dom)  Ruinart,  for  ex- 
ample, a  man  otherwise  as  well  informed  as  he  was 
respectable  and  devout,  should  have  selected  his 
genuine  records,  his  "actes  sinceres,"  with  more  dis- 
cretion. It  is  not  sufficient  that  a  manuscript, 
whether  taken  from  the  abbey  of  St.  Benoit  on  the 
Loire,  or  from  a  convent  of  Celestines  at  Paris,  cor- 
responds with  a  manuscript  of  the   Feuillans,  to 


Dictionary.  149 

show  that  the  record  is  authentic ;  the  record  should 
possess  a  suitable  antiquity ;  should  have  been  evi- 
dently written  by  contemporaries ;  and,  moreover, 
should  bear  all  the  characters  of  truth. 

He  might  have  dispensed  with  relating  the  ad- 
venture of  young  Romanus,  which  occurred  in  303. 
This  young  Romanus  had  obtained  the  pardon  of 
Diocletian,  at  Antioch.  However,  Ruinart  states 
that  the  judge  Asclepiades  condemned  him  to  be 
burnt.  The  Jews  who  were  present  at  the  spec- 
tacle, derided  the  young  saint  and  reproached  the 
Christians,  that  their  God,  who  had  delivered  Shad- 
rach,  Meshach,  and  Abednego  out  of  the  furnace, 
left  them  to  be  burned ;  that  immediately,  although 
the  weather  had  been  as  calm  as  possible,  a  tremen- 
dous storm  arose  and  extinguished  the  flames ;  that 
the  judge  then  ordered  young  Romanus's  tongue  to 
be  cut  out ;  that  the  principal  surgeon  of  the  em- 
peror, being  present,  eagerly  acted  the  part  of  exe- 
cutioner, and  cut  off  the  tongue  at  the  root ;  that 
instantly  the  yoimg  man,  who,  before  had  an  im- 
pediment in  his  speech,  spoke  with  perfect  freedom ; 
that  the  emperor  was  astonished  that  any  one  could 
speak  so  well  without  a  tongue ;  and  that  the  sur- 
geon, to  repeat  the  experiment,  directly  cut  out  the 
tongue  of  some  bystander,  who  died  on  the  spot. 

Eusebius,  from  whom  the  Benedictine  Ruinart 
drew  his  narrative,  should  have  so  far  respected  the 
real  miracles  performed  in  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment— which  no  one  can  ever  doubt — as  not  to  have 


1 50  Philosophical 

associated  with  them  relations  so  suspicious,  and  so 
calculated  to  give  offence  to  weak  minds.  This  last 
persecution  did  not  extend  through  the  empire. 
There  was  at  that  time  some  Christianity  in  Eng- 
land, which  soon  eclipsed,  to  reappear  afterwards 
under  the  Saxon  kings.  The  southern  districts  of 
Gaul  and  Spain  abounded  with  Christians.  The 
Caesar  Constantius  Chlorus  afforded  them  great  pro- 
tection in  all  his  provinces.  He  had  a  concubine 
who  was  a  Christian,  and  who  was  the  mother  of 
Constantine,  known  under  the  name  of  St.  Helena ; 
for  no  marriage  was  ever  proved  to  have  taken  place 
between  them ;  he  even  divorced  her  in  the  yeai 
292,  when  he  married  the  daughter  of  Maximilian 
Hercules ;  but  she  had  preserved  great  ascendency 
over  his  mind,  and  had  inspired  him  with  a  great 
attachment  to  our  holy  religion. 

Of  the  Establishment  of  the  Church   Under  Con- 
stantine. 

Thus  did  divine  Providence  prepare  the  triumph 
of  its  church  by  ways  apparently  conformable  to 
human  causes  and  events.  Constantius  Chlorus  died 
in  306,  at  York,  in  England,  at  a  time  when  the 
children  he  had  by  the  daughter  of  a  Caesar  were 
of  tender  age,  and  incapable  of  making  pretensions 
to  the  empire.  Constantine  boldly  got  himself 
elected  at  York,  by  five  or  six  thousand  soldiers, 
the  greater  part  of  whom  were  French  and  English, 
There  was  no  probability  that  this  election,  effected 


Dictionary.  151 

without  the  consent  of  Rome,  of  the  senate  and  the 
armies,  could  stand;  but  God  gave  him  the  victory 
over  Maxentius,  who  had  been  elected  at  Rome, 
and  delivered  him  at  last  from  all  his  colleagues. 
It  is  not  to  be  dissembled  that  he  at  first  rendered 
himself  unworthy  of  the  favors  of  heaven,  by  mur- 
dering all  his  relations,  and  at  length  even  his  own 
wife  and  son. 

We  may  be  permitted  to  doubt  what  Zosimus 
relates  on  this  subject.  He  states  that  Constantine, 
under  the  tortures  of  remorse  from  the  perpetration 
of  so  many  crimes,  inquired  of  the  pontiffs  of  the 
empire,  whether  it  were  possible  for  him  to  obtain 
any  expiation,  and  that  they  informed  him  that  they 
knew  of  none.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  none  was 
found  for  Nero,  and  that  he  did  not  venture  to  as- 
sist at  the  sacred  mysteries  in  Greece.  However, 
the  Taurobolia  were  still  observed,  and  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  an  emperor,  supremely  powerful, 
could  not  obtain  a  priest  who  would  willingly  in- 
dulge him  in  expiatory  sacrifices.  Perhaps,  indeed, 
it  is  less  easy  to  believe  that  Constantine,  occupied 
as  he  was  with  war,  politic  enterprises,  and  ambi- 
tion, and  surrounded  by  flatterers,  had  time  for  re- 
morse at  all.  Zosimus  adds  that  an  Egyptian  priest, 
who  had  access  to  his  gate,  promised  him  the  expia- 
tion of  all  his  crimes  in  the  Christian  religion.  It 
has  been  suspected  that  this  priest  was  Ozius,  bishop 
of  Cordova. 

However  this  might  be,  God  reserved  Constan- 


1^2  Philosophical 

tine  for  the  purpose  of  enlightening  his  mind,  and 
to  make  him  the  protector  of  the  Church.  This 
prince  built  the  city  of  Constantinople,  which  be- 
came the  centre  of  the  empire  and  of  the  Christian 
religion.  The  Church  then  assumed  a  form  of 
splendor.  And  we  may  hope  that,  being  purified  by 
his  baptism,  and  penitent  at  his  death,  he  may  have 
found  mercy,  although  he  died  an  Arian.  It  would 
be  not  a  little  severe,  were  all  the  partisans  of  both 
the  bishops  of  the  name  of  Eusebius  to  incur  damna- 
tion. 

In  the  year  314,  before  Constantine  resided  in  his 
new  city,  those  who  had  persecuted  the  Christians 
were  punished  by  them  for  their  cruelties.  The 
Christians  threw  Maxentius's  wife  into  the  Orontes  ; 
they  cut  the  throats  of  all  his  relations,  and  they 
massacred,  in  Egypt  and  Palestine,  those  magis- 
trates who  had  most  strenuously  declared  against 
Christianity.  The  widow  and  daughter  of  Diocle- 
tian, having  concealed  themselves  at  Thessalonica, 
were  recognized,  and  their  bodies  thrown  into  the 
sea.  It  would  certainly  have  been  desirable  that 
the  Christians  should  have  followed  less  eagerly  the 
cry  of  vengeance ;  but  it  was  the  will  of  God,  who 
punishes  according  to  justice,  that,  as  soon  as  the 
Christians  were  able  to  act  without  restraint,  their 
hands  should  be  dyed  in  the  blood  of  their  perse- 
cutors. 

Constantine  summoned  to  meet  at  Nice,  opposite 
Constantinople,    the    first    ecumenical    council,    of 


Dictionary.  153 

which  Ozius  was  president.  Here  was  decided  the 
grand  question  that  agitated  the  Church,  relating  to 
the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  well  known  how 
the  Church,  having  contended  for  three  hundred 
years  against  the  rights  of  the  Roman  Empire,  at 
length  contended  against  itself,  and  was  always  mili- 
tant and  triumphant. 

In  the  course  of  time  almost  the  whole  of  the 
Greek  church  and  the  whole  African  church  be- 
came slaves  under  the  Arabs,  and  afterwards  under 
the  Turks,  who  erected  the  Mahometan  religion  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Christian.  The  Roman  church  sub- 
sisted, but  always  reeking  with  blood,  through  more 
than  six  centuries  of  discord  between  the  western 
empire  and  the  priesthood.  Even  these  quarrels 
rendered  her  very  powerful.  The  bishops  and  ab- 
bots in  Germany  all  became  princes ;  and  the  popes 
gradually  acquired  absolute  dominion  in  Rome,  and 
throughout  a  considerable  territory.  Thus  has  God 
proved  his  church,  by  humiliations,  by  afflictions, 
by  crimes,  and  by  splendor. 

This  Latin  church,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  lost 
half  of  Germany,  Denmark,  Sweden,  England, 
Scotland,  Ireland,  and  the  greater  part  of  Switzer- 
land and  Holland.  She  gained  more  territory  in 
America  by  the  conquests  of  the  Spaniards  than 
she  lost  in  Europe ;  but,  with  more  territory,  she  has  * 
fewer  subjects. 

Divine  Providence  seemed  to  call  upon  Japan, 
Siam,  India,  and  China  to  place  themselves  under 


1 54  Philosophical 

obedience  to  the  pope,  in  order  to  recompense  him 
for  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Greece,  Egypt,  Africa,  Rus- 
sia, and  the  other  lost  states  which  we  mentioned. 
St.  Francis  Xavier,  who  carried  the  holy  gospel  to 
the  East  Indies  and  Japan,  when  the  Portuguese 
went  thither  upon  mercantile  adventure,  performed 
a  great  number  of  miracles,  all  attested  by  the  R. 
R.  P.  P.  Jesuits.  Some  state  that  he  resuscitated 
nine  dead  persons.  But  R.  P.  Ribadeneira,  in  his 
"Flower  of  the  Saints,"  limits  himself  to  asserting 
that  he  resuscitated  only  four.  That  is  sufficient. 
Providence  was  desirous  that,  in  less  than  a  hundred 
years,  there  should  have  been  thousands  of  Catho- 
Hcs  in  the  islands  of  Japan.  But  the  devil  sowed  his 
tares  among  the  good  grain.  The  Jesuits,  accord- 
ing to  what  is  generally  believed,  entered  into  a 
conspiracy,  followed  by  a  civil  war,  in  which  all  the 
Christians  were  exterminated  in  1638.  The  nation 
then  closed  its  ports  against  all  foreigners  except  the 
Dutch,  who  were  considered  merchants  and  not 
Christians,  and  were  first  compelled  to  trample  on 
the  cross  in  order  to  gain  leave  to  sell  their  wares 
in  the  prison  in  which  they  are  shut  up,  when  they 
land  at  Nagasaki, 

The  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and  Roman  religion  has 
become  proscribed  in  China  in  our  own  time,  but 
'  with  circumstances  of  less  cruelty.  The  R.  R.  P.  P. 
Jesuits  had  not,  indeed,  resuscitated  the  dead  at  the 
court  of  Pekin ;  they  were  contented  with  teaching 
astronomv.  casting  cannon,  and  being  mandarins. 


Dictionary.  15^ 

Their  unfortunate  disputes  with  the  Dominicans  and 
others  gave  such  offence  to  the  great  Emperor 
Yonchin  that  that  prince,  who  was  justice  and 
goodness  personified,  was  bhnd  enough  to  refuse 
permission  any  longer  to  teach  our  holy  religion, 
in  respect  to  which  our  missionaries  so  little  agreed. 
He  expelled  them,  but  with  a  kindness  truly  pa- 
ternal, supplying  them  with  means  of  subsistence, 
and  conveyance  to  the  confines  of  his  empire. 

All  Asia,  all  Africa,  the  half  of  Europe,  all  that 
belongs  to  the  English  and  Dutch  in  Arfierica,  all 
the  unconquered  American  tribes,  all  the  southern 
climes,  which  constitute  a  fifth  portion  of  the  globe, 
remain  the  prey  of  the  demon,  in  order  to  fulfil 
those  sacred  words,  "many  are  called,  but  few  are 
chosen." — Matt,  xx.,  16. 

Of  the  Signification  of  the  Word  "Church."  Pic- 
ture of  the  Primitive  Church.  Its  Degeneracy. 
Examination  into  those  Societies  which  have  At- 
tempted to  Re-establish  the  Primitive  Church, 
and  Particularly  into  that  of  the  Primitives  called 
Quakers. 

The  term  "church"  among  the  Greeks  signified 
the  assembly  of  the  people.  When  the  Hebrew 
books  were  translated  into  Greek,  "synagogue"  was 
rendered  by  "church",  and  the  same  term  was  em- 
ployed to  express  the  "Jewish  society,"  the  "political 
congregation,"  the  "Jewish  assembly,"  the  "Jewish 
people."     Thus  it  is  said  in  the  Book  of  Numbers, 


156  Philosopnicai 

"Why  hast  thou  conducted  the  church  into  the  wil- 
derness ;"  and  in  Deuteronomy,  "The  eunuch,  the 
]\Ioabite,  and  the  Ammonite,  shall  not  enter  the 
church ;  the  Idumaeans  and  the  Egyptians  shall  not 
enter  the  church,   even   to  the   third   generation." 

Jesus  Christ  says,  in  St.  Matthew,  "If  thy 
brother  have  sinned  against  thee  [have  offended 
thee]  rebuke  him,  between  yourselves.  Take  with 
you  one  or  two  witnesses,  that,  from  the  mouth  of 
two  or  three  witnesses,  everything  may  be  made 
clear ;  and,  if  he  hear  not  them,  complain  to  the  as- 
sembly of  the  people,  to  the  church ;  and,  if  he  hear 
not  the  church,  let  him  be  to  thee  as  a  heathen  or 
a  publican.  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  so  shall  it  come 
to  pass,  whatsoever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be 
bound  in  heaven,  and  whatsoever  ye  shall  loose  on 
earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven" — an  illusion  to  the 
keys  of  doors  which  close  and  unclose  the  latch. 

The  case  is  here,  that  of  two  men,  one  of  whom 
has  offended  the  other,  and  persists.  He  could  not 
be  made  to  appear  in  the  assembly,  in  the  Christian 
church,  as  there  was  none ;  the  person  against  whom 
his  companion  complained  could  not  be  judged  by 
a  bishop  and  priests  who  were  not  in  existence ;  be- 
sides which,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  neither  Jewish 
priests  nor  Christian  priests  ever  became  judges  in 
quarrels  between  private  persons.  It  was  a  matter 
of  police.  Bishops  did  not  become  judges  till  about 
the  time  of  Valentinian  III. 

The  commentators  have  therefore  concluded  that 


Dictionary.  157 

the  sacred  writer  of  this  gospel  makes  our  Lord 
speak  in  this  passage  by  anticipation — that  it  is  an 
allegory,  a  prediction  of  what  would  take  place 
when  the  Christian  church  should  be  formed  and 
established. 

Selden  makes  an  important  remark  on  this  pas- 
sage, that,  among  the  Jews,  publicans  or  collectors 
of  the  royal  moneys  were  not  excommunicated. 
The  populace  might  detest  them,  but  as  they  were 
indispensable  officers,  appointed  by  the  prince,  the 
idea  had  never  occurred  to  any  one  of  separating 
them  from  the  assembly.  The  Jews  were  at  that 
time  under  the  administration  of  the  proconsul  of 
Syria,  whose  jurisdiction  extended  to  the  confines 
of  Galilee,  and  to  the  island  of  Cyprus,  where  he 
had  deputies.  It  would  have  been  highly  impru- 
dent in  any  to  show  publicly  their  abomination  of 
the  legal  officers  of  the  proconsul.  Injustice,  even, 
would  have  been  added  to  imprudence,  for  the 
Roman  knights — equestrians — who  farmed  the  pub- 
lic domain  and  collected  Caesar's  money,  were  au- 
thorized by  the  laws. 

St.  Augustine,  in  his  eighty-first  sermon,  may 
perhaps  suggest  reflections  for  comprehending  this 
passage.  He  is  speaking  of  those  who  retain  their 
hatred,  who  are  slow  to  pardon. 

"Cepisti  habere  fratrem  tuum  tanquam  public- 
aniim.  Ligas  ilium  in  terra;  sed  ut  juste  alliges 
tnde;  nam  in  just  a  znncnla  dirsumpit  justitiu.  Cum 
aiitem  correxeris  et  concordaveris  cum  fratre  tuo 


158  Philosophical 

solvisti  euiii  in  terra."  You  began  to  regard  your 
brother  as  a  publican ;  that  is,  to  bind  him  on  the 
earth.  But  be  cautious  that  you  bind  him  justly,  for 
justice  breaks  unjust  bonds.  But  when  you  have 
corrected,  and  afterwards  agreed  with  your  brother, 
you  have  loosed  him  on  earth. 

From  St.  Augustine's  interpretation,  it  seems 
that  the  person  offended  shut  up  the  offender  in 
prison ;  and  that  it  is  to  be  understood  that,  if  the 
offender  is  put  in  bonds  on  earth,  he  is  also  in 
heavenly  bonds ;  but  that  if  the  offended  person  is 
inexorable,  he  becomes  bound  himself.  In  St.  Au- 
gustine's explanation  there  is  nothing  whatever  re- 
lating to  the  Church.  The  whole  matter  relates  to 
pardoning  or  not  pardoning  an  injury.  St.  Augus- 
tine is  not  speaking  here  of  the  sacerdotal  power  of 
remitting  sins  in  the  name  of  God.  That  is  a  right 
recognized  in  other  places ;  a  right  derived  from  the 
sacrament  of  confession.  St.  Augustine,  profound 
as  he  is  in  types  and  allegories,  does  not  consider 
this  famous  passage  as  alluding  to  the  absolution 
given  or  refused  by  the  ministers  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  m  the  sacrament  of  penance. 

Of  the  "Church,"  in  Christian  Societies. 

In  the  greater  part  of  Christian  states  we  per- 
ceive no  more  than  four  churches — the  Greek,  the 
Roman,  tlie  Lutheran,  and  the  reformed  or  Calvin- 
istic.  It  is  thus  in  Germany.  The  Primitives  or 
Quakers,  the  Anabaptists,  the  Socinians,  the  Mem- 


Dictionary.  1 59 

nonists,  the  Pietists,  the  Moravians,  the  Jews,  and 
others,  do  not  form  a  church.  The  Jewish  rehgion 
has  preserved  the  designation  of  synagogue.  The 
Christian  sects  which  are  tolerated  have  only  private 
assemblies,  "conventicles."  It  is  the  same  in  Lon- 
don. We  do  not  find  the  Catholic  Church  in 
Sweden,  nor  in  Denmark,  nor  in  the  north  of  Ger- 
many, nor  in  Holland,  nor  in  three  quarters  of 
Switzerland,  nor  in  the  three  kingdoms  of  Great 
Britain. 

Of  the  Primitive  Church,  and  of  Those  Who  Have 
Endeavored  to  Re-establish  It. 

The  Jews,  as  well  as  all  the  different  people  of 
Syria,  were  divided  into  many  different  congrega- 
tions, as  we  have  already  seen.  All  were  aimed  at 
a  mystical  perfection.  A  ray  of  purer  light  shone 
upon  the  disciples  of  St.  John,  who  still  subsist  near 
Mosul.  At  last,  the  Son  of  God,  announced  by  St. 
John,  appeared  on  earth,  whose  disciples  were  al- 
ways on  a  perfect  equality.  Jesus  had  expressly 
enjoined  them,  "There  shall  not  be  any  of  you  either 

first  or  last I  came  to  serve,  not  to  be  served. 

....  He  who  strives  to  be  master  over  others  shall 
be  their  servant." 

One  proof  of  equality  is  that  the  Christians  at 
first  took  no  other  designation  than  that  of  "breth- 
ren." They  assembled  in  expectation  of  the  spirit. 
They  prophesied  when  they  were  inspired.  St. 
Paul;  in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians,  says  to 


i6o  Philosophical 

them,  "If,  in  your  assembly,  any  one  of  you  have  the 
gift  of  a  psalm,  a  doctrine,  a  revelation,  a  language, 
an  interpretation,  let  all  be  done  for  edification.  If 
any  speak  languages,  as  two  or  three  may  do  in  suc- 
cession, let  there  be  an  interpreter. 

"Let  two  or  three  prophets  speak,  and  the  others 
judge ;  and  if  anything  be  revealed  to  another  while 
one  is  speaking,  let  the  latter  be  silent ;  for  you  may 
ail  prophesy  one  by  one,  that  all  may  learn  and  all 
exhort ;  the   spirit   of  prophecy   is   subject  to   the 

prophets ;  for  the  Lord  is  a  God  of  peace 

Thus,  then,  my  brethren,  be  all  of  you  desirous  of 
prophesying,  and  hinder  not  the  speaking  of  lan- 
guages." 

I  have  translated  Hterally,  both  out  of  reverence 
for  the  text,  and  to  avoid  any  disputes  about  words. 
St.  Paul,  in  the  same  epistle,  admits  that  women 
may  prophesy ;  although,  in  the  fourteenth  chapter, 
he  forbids  their  speaking  in  the  assemblies.  "Every 
woman,"  says  he,  "praying  or  prophesying  without 
having  a  veil  over  her  head,  dishonoreth  her  head, 
for  it  is  the  same  as  if  she  were  shaven." 

It  is  clear,  from  all  these  passages  and  from  many 
others,  that  the  first  Christians  were  all  equal,  not 
merely  as  brethren  in  Jesus  Christ,  but  as  having 
equal  gifts.  The  spirit  was  communicated  to  them 
equally.  They  equally  spoke  different  languages; 
they  had  equally  the  gift  of  prophesying,  without 
distinction  of  rank,  age,  or  sex. 

The  apostles  who  instructed  the  neophytes  pos- 


Dictionary.  1 6 1 

sessed  over  them,  unquestionably,  that  natural  pre- 
eminence which  the  preceptor  has  over  the  pupil ; 
but  of  jurisdiction,  of  temporal  authority,  of  what 
the  world  calls  "honors,"  of  distinction  in  dress,  of 
emblems  of  superiority,  assuredly  neither  they,  nor 
those  who  succeeded  them,  had  any.  They  pos- 
sessed another,  and  a  very  different  superiority,  that 
of  persuasion. 

The  brethren  put  their  money  into  one  common 
stock.  Seven  persons  w^ere  chosen  by  themselves 
out  of  their  own  body,  to  take  charge  of  the  tables, 
and  to  provide  for  the  common  wants.  They  chose, 
in  Jerusalem  itself,  those  whom  we  call  Stephen, 
Philip,  Procorus,  Nicanor,  Timon,  Parmenas,  and 
Nicholas.  It  is  remarkable  that,  among  seven  per- 
sons chosen  by  a  Jewish  community,  six  were 
Greeks. 

After  the  time  of  the  apostles  we  find  no  ex- 
ample of  any  Christian  who  possessed  any  other 
power  over  other  Christians  than  that  of  instruct- 
ing, exhorting,  expelling  demons  from  the  bodies  of 
"energumens,"  and  performing  miracles.  All  is 
spiritual ;  nothing  savors  of  worldly  pomp.  It  was 
only  in  the  third  century  that  the  spirit  of  pride, 
vanity,  and  interest,  began  to  be  manifested  among 
the  believers  on  every  side. 

The  agapse  had  now  become  splendid  festivals, 

and  attracted  reproach  for  the  luxury  and  profusion 

which  attended  them.     Tertullian  acknowledges  it. 

"Yes,"  says  he,  "we  make  splendid  and  plentiful 
Vol.  7 — II 


1 62  Philosophical 

entertainments,  but  was  not  the  same  done  at  the 
mysteries  of  Athens  and  of  Egypt?  Whatever 
learning  we  display,  it  is  useful  and  pious,  as  the 
poor  benefit  by  it."  Quantiscninqne  sumptihus  con- 
stet,  lucrum  est  pictafis,  si  quidein  iiiopes  refrigerio 
isto  juzviims. 

About  this  very  period,  certain  societies  of  Chris- 
tians, who  pronounced  themselves  more  perfect  than 
the  rest,  the  IMontanists,  for  example,  who  boasted 
of  so  many  prophecies  and  so  austere  a  morality ; 
who  regarded  second  nuptials  as  absolute  adulteries, 
and  flight  from  persecution  as  apostasy ;  who  had 
exhibited  in  public  holy  convulsions  and  ecstasies, 
and  pretended  to  speak  with  God  face  to  face,  were 
convicted,  it  was  said,  of  mixing  the  blood  of  an  in- 
fant, a  year  old,  with  the  bread  of  the  eucharist. 
They  brought  upon  the  true  Christians  this  dreadful 
reproach,  which  exposed  them  to  persecutions. 

Their  method  of  proceeding,  according  to  St. 
Augustine,  was  this :  they  pricked  the  whole  body 
of  the  infant  with  pins  and,  kneading  up  flour  with 
the  blood,  made  bread  of  it.  If  any  one  died  by 
eating  it,  they  honored  him  as  a  martyr. 

Manners  were  so  corrupted  that  the  holy  fathers 
were  incessantly  complaining  of  it.  Hear  what  St. 
Cyprian  says,  in  his  book  concerning  tombs  :  "Every 
priest,"  says  he,  "seeks  for  wealth  and  honor  with 
insatiable  avidity.  Bishops  are  without  religion ; 
women  without  modesty ;  knavery  is  general ;  pro- 
fane swearing  and  perjury  abound;  animosities  di- 


Dictionary.  163 

vide  Christians  asunder ;  bishops  abandon  their 
pupils  to  attend  the  exchange,  and  obtain  opulence 
by  merchandise ;  in  short,  we  please  ourselves  alone, 
and  excite  the  disgust  of  all  the  rest  of  the  world." 

Before  the  occurrence  of  these  scandals,  the 
priest  Novatian  had  been  the  cause  of  a  very  dread- 
ful one  to  the  people  of  Rome.  He  was  the  first  anti- 
pope.  The  bishopric  of  Rome,  although  secret,  and 
liable  to  persecution,  was  an  object  of  ambition  and 
avarice,  on  account  of  the  liberal  contributions  of 
the  Christians,  and  the  authority  attached  to  that 
high  situation. 

We  will  not  here  describe  again  what  is  contained 
in  so  many  authentic  documents,  and  what  we  every 
day  hear  from  the  mouths  of  persons  correctly  in- 
formed— the  prodigious  number  of  schisms  and 
wars ;  the  six  hundred  years  of  fierce  hostility  be- 
tween the  empire  and  the  priesthood ;  the  wealth 
of  nations,  flowing  through  a  thousand  channels, 
sometimes  into  Rome,  sometimes  into  Avignon, 
when  the  popes,  for  two  and  seventy  years  together, 
fixed  their  residence  in  that  place ;  the  blood  rush- 
ing in  streams  throughout  Europe,  either  for  the  in- 
terest of  a  tiara  utterly  unknown  to  Jesus  Christ,  or 
on  account  of  unintelligible  questions  which  He 
never  mentioned.  Our  religion  is  not  less  sacred  or 
less  divine  for  having  been  so  defiled  by  guilt  and 
steeped  in  carnage. 

When  the  frenzy  of  domination,  that  dreadful 
passion  of  the  human  heart,  had  reached  its  greatest 


164  Philosophical 

excess;  when  the  monk  Hildebrand,  elected  bishop 
of  Rome  against  the  laws,  wrested  that  capital  from 
the  emperors,  and  forbade  all  the  bishops  of  the  west 
from  bearing  the  name  of  pope,  in  order  to  appro- 
priate it  to  himself  alone ;  when  the  bishops  of  Ger- 
many, following  his  example,  made  themselves  sov- 
ereigns, which  all  those  of  France  and  England  also 
attempted ;  from  those  dreadful  times  down  even  to 
our  own,  certain  Christian  societies  have  arisen 
which,  under  a  hundred  different  names,  have  en- 
deavored to  re-establish  the  primitive  equality  in 
Christendom. 

But  what  had  been  practicable  in  a  small  society, 
concealed  from  the  world,  was  no  longer  so  in  ex- 
tensive kingdoms.  The  church  militant  and  tri- 
umphant could  no  longer  be  the  church  humble 
and  unknown.  The  bishops  and  the  large,  rich,  and 
powerful  monastic  communities,  uniting  under  the 
standards  of  the  new  pontificate  of  Rome,  fought  at 
that  time  pro  aris  et  focis,  for  their  hearths  and 
altars.  Crusades,  armies,  sieges,  battles,  rapine,  tor- 
tures, assassinations  by  the  hand  of  the  executioner, 
assassinations  by  the  hands  of  priests  of  both  the 
contending  parties,  poisonings,  devastations  by  fire 
and  sword — all  were  employed  to  support  and  to 
pull  down  the  new  ecclesiastical  administration ;  and 
the  cradle  of  the  primitive  church  was  so  hidden  as 
to  be  scarcely  discoverable  under  the  blood  and 
bones  of  the  slain. 


Dictionary.  165 

Of  the  Primitives  called  Quakers. 

The  religious  and  civil  wars  of  Great  Britain 
having  desolated  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland, 
in  the  unfortunate  reign  of  Charles  I.,  William 
Penn,  son  of  a  vice-admiral,  resolved  to  go  and  es- 
tablish what  he  called  the  primitive  Church  on  the 
shores  of  North  America,  in  a  climate  which  ap- 
peared to  him  to  be  mild  and  congenial  to  his  own 
manners.  His  sect  went  under  the  denomination  of 
"Quakers,"  a  ludicrous  designation,  but  which  they 
merited,  by  the  trembling  of  the  body  which  they 
affected  when  preaching,  and  by  a  nasal  pronuncia- 
tion, such  as  peculiarly  distinguished  one  species  of 
monks  in  the  Roman  Church,  the  Capuchins.  But 
men  may  both  snuffle  and  shake,  and  yet  be  meek, 
frugal,  modest,  just,  and  charitable.  No  one  denies 
that  this  society  of  Primitives  displayed  an  example 
of  all  those  virtues. 

Penn  saw  that  the  English  bishops  and  the  Pres- 
byterians had  been  the  cause  of  a  dreadful  war  on 
account  of  a  surplice,  lawn  sleeves,  and  a  liturgy. 
He  would  have  neither  liturgy,  lawn,  nor  surplice. 
The  apostles  had  none  of  them.  Jesus  Christ  had 
baptized  none.  The  associates  of  Penn  declined 
baptism. 

The  first  believers  were  equal ;  these  new  comers 
aimed  at  being  so,  as  far  as  possible.  The  first  dis- 
ciples received  the  spirit,  and  spoke  in  the  assembly ; 
they  had  no  altars,  no  temples,  no  ornaments,  no 
tapers,  incense,  or  ceremonies.     Penn  and  his  fol- 


1 66  Philosophical 

lowers  flattered  themselves  that  they  received  the 
spirit,  and  they  renounced  all  pomp  and  ceremony. 
Charity  was  in  high  esteem  with  the  disciples  of  the 
Saviour ;  those  of  Penn  formed  a  common  purse  for 
assisting  the  poor.  Thus  these  imitators  of  the 
Essenians  and  first  Christians,  although  in  error 
with  respect  to  doctrines  and  ceremonies,  were  an 
astonishing  model  of  order  and  morals  to  every 
other  society  of  Christians. 

At  length  this  singular  man  went,  with  five  hun- 
dred of  his  followers,  to  form  an  establishment  in 
what  was  at  that  time  the  most  savage  district  of 
America.  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden  had  been  de- 
sirous of  founding  a  colony  there,  which,  however, 
had  not  prospered.  The  Primitives  of  Penn  were 
more  successful. 

It  was  on  the  banks  of  the  Delaware,  near  the 
fortieth  degree  of  latitude.  This  country  belonged 
to  the  king  of  England  only  because  there  were  no 
others  who  claimed  it,  and  because  the  people  wdiom 
we  call  savages,  and  who  might  have  cultivated  it, 
had  always  remained  far  distant  in  the  recesses  of 
the  forests.  If  England  had  possessed  this  country 
merely  by  right  of  conquest,  Penn  and  his  Prim- 
itives would  have  held  such  an  asylum  in  horror. 
They  looked  upon  the  pretended  right  of  conquest 
only  as  a  violation  of  the  right  of  nature,  and  as 
absolute  robbery. 

King  Charles  II,  made  Penn  sovereign  of  all 
this  wild  country  by  a  charter  granted  March  4, 


Dictionary.  1 67 

1681.  In  the  following  year  Penn  promulgated  his 
code  of  laws.  The  first  was  complete  civil  liberty, 
in  consequence  of  which  every  colonist  possessing 
five  acres  of  land  became  a  member  of  the  legisla- 
ture. The  next  was  an  absolute  prohibition  against 
advocates  and  attorneys  ever  taking  fees.  The  third 
was  the  admission  of  all  religions,  and  even  the 
permission  to  every  inhabitant  to  worship  (iod  in 
his  own  house,  without  ever  taking  part  in  public 
worship. 

This  is  the  law  last  mentioned,  in  the  terms  of 
its  enactment :  "Liberty  of  conscience  being  a 
right  ^vhich  all  men  have  received  from  nature  with 
their  very  being,  and  which  all  peaceable  persons 
ought  to  maintain,  it  is  positively  established  that 
no  person  shall  be  compelled  to  join  in  any  public 
exercise  of  religion. 

"But  every  one  is  expressly  allowed  full  power 
to  engage  freely  in  the  public  or  private  exercise  of 
his  religion,  without  incurring  thereby  any  trouble 
or  impediment,  under  any  pretext ;  provided  that  he 
acknowledge  his  belief  in  one  only  eternal  God  Al- 
mighty, the  creator,  preserver,  and  governor  of  the 
universe,  and  that  he  fulfil  all  the  duties  of  civil 
society  which  he  is  bound  to  perform  to  his  fellow 
citizens." 

This  law  is  even  more  indulgent,  more  humane, 
than  that  which  was  given  to  the  people  of  Carolina 
by  Locke,  the  Plato  of  England,  so  superior  to  the 
Plato  of   Greece.     Locke  permitted  no  public  re- 


1 68  Philosophical 

ligions  except  such  as  should  be  approved  by  seven 
fathers  of  families.  This  is  a  different  sort  of  wis- 
dom from  Perm's. 

But  that  which  reflects  immortal  honor  on  both 
legislators,  and  which  should  operate  as  an  eternal 
example  to  mankind,  is,  that  this  liberty  of  con- 
science has  not  occasioned  the  least  disturbance.  It 
might,  on  the  contrary,  be  said  that  God  had 
showered  down  the  most  distinguished  blessings  on 
the  colony  of  Pennsylvania.  It  consisted,  in  1682, 
of  five  hundred  persons,  and  in  less  than  a  century 
its  population  had  increased  to  nearly  three  hundred 
thousand.  One  half  of  the  colonists  are  of  the 
primitive  religion ;  twenty  different  religions  com- 
prise the  other  half.  There  are  twelve  fine  chapels 
in  Philadelphia,  and  in  other  places  every  house  is 
a  chapel.  This  city  has  deserved  its  name:  "Broth- 
erly Love."  Seven  other  cities,  and  innumerable 
small  towns,  flourish  under  this  law  of  concord. 
Three  hundred  vessels  leave  the  port  in  the  course 
of  every  year. 

This  state,  which  seems  to  deserve  perpetual 
duration,  was  very  nearly  destroyed  in  the  fatal  war 
of  1755,  when  the  French,  with  their  savage  allies 
on  one  side,  and  the  English,  with  theirs,  on  the 
other,  began  with  disputing  about  some  frozen  dis- 
tricts of  Nova  Scotia.  The  Primitives,  faithful  to 
their  pacific  system  of  Christianity,  declined  to  take 
up  arms.  The  savages  killed  some  of  their  colonists 
on  the  frontier;    the  Primitives  made  no  reprisals. 


Dictionary.  169 

They  even  refused,  for  a  long  time,  to  pay  the 
troops.  They  addressed  the  EngHsh  general  in  these 
words :  "Men  are  like  pieces  of  clay,  which  are 
broken  to  pieces  one  against  another.  Why  should 
we  aid  in  breaking  one  another  to  pieces  ?" 

At  last,  in  the  general  assembly  of  the  legislature 
of  Pennsylvania,  the  other  religions  prevailed; 
troops  were  raised ;  the  Primitives  contributed 
money,  but  declined  being  armed.  They  obtained 
their  object,  which  was  peace  with  their  neighbors. 
These  pretended  savages  said  to  them,  "Send  us  a 
descendant  of  the  great  Penn,  who  never  deceived 
us;  with  him  we  will  treat."  A  grandson  of  that 
great  man  was  deputed,  and  peace  was  concluded. 
Many  of  the  Primitives  had  negro  slaves  to  culti- 
vate their  estates.  But  they  blushed  at  having,  in 
this  instance,  imitated  other  Christians.  They  gave 
liberty  to  their  slaves  in  1769. 

At  present  all  the  other  colonists  imitate  them  in 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  although  there  are  among 
them  Presbyterians  and  persons  of  the  high  church 
party,  no  one  is  molested  about  his  creed.  It  is  this 
which  has  rendered  the  English  power  in  America 
equal  to  that  of  Spain,  with  all  its  mines  of  gold  and 
silver.  If  any  method  could  be  devised  to  enervate 
the  English  colonies  it  would  be  to  establish  in  them 
the  Inquisition. 

The  example  of  the  Primitives,  called  "Quakers," 
has  given  rise  in  Pennsylvania  to  a  new  society,  in 
a  district  which  it  calls  Euphrates.    This  is  the  sect 


lyo  Philosophical 

of  Dunkers  or  Dumpers,  a  sect  much  more  secluded 
from  the  world  than  Penn's ;  a  sort  of  religious 
hospitallers,  all  clothed  uniformly.  Married  persons 
are  not  permitted  to  reside  in  the  city  of  Euphrates : 
they  reside  in  the  country,  which  they  cultivate. 
The  public  treasury  supplies  all  their  wants  in  times 
of  scarcity.  This  society  administers  baptism  only 
to  adults.  It  rejects  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  as 
impious,  and  that  of  the  eternity  of  punishment  as 
barbarous.  The  purity  of  their  lives  permits  them 
not  to  imagine  that  God  will  torment  His  creatures 
cruelly  or  eternally.  Gone  astray  in  a  corner  of  the 
new  world,  far  from  the  great  flock  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  they  are,  up  to  the  present  hour,  not- 
withstanding this  unfortunate  error,  the  most  just 
and  most  inimitable  of  men. 

Quarrel  bctzveen  the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches  in 
Asia  and  Europe. 

It  has  been  a  matter  of  lamentation  to  all  good 
men  for  nearly  fourteen  centuries  that  the  Greek 
and  Latin  Churches  have  always  been  rivals,  and 
that  the  robe  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  was  without  a 
scam,  has  been  continually  rent  asunder.  This  oppo- 
sition is  perfectly  natural.  Rome  and  Constantinople 
hate  each  other.  When  masters  cherish  a  mutual 
aversion,  their  dependents  entertain  no  mutual  re- 
gard. The  two  communions  have  disputed  on  the 
superiority  of  language,  the  antiquity  of  sees,  on 
learning,  eloquence,  and  power. 


Dictionary.  171 

It  is  certain  that,  for  a  long  time,  the  Greeks  pos- 
sessed all  the  advantage.  They  boasted  that  they 
had  been  the  masters  of  the  Latins,  and  that  they  had 
taught  them  everything.  The  Gospels  were  written 
in  Greek.  There  was  not  a  doctrine,  a  rite,  a  mys- 
tery, a  usage,  ^^'hich  was  not  Greek  ;  from  the  word 
"baptism"  to  the  word  "eucharist"  all  was  Greek. 
No  fathers  of  the  Church  were  known  except 
among  the  Greeks  till  St.  Jerome,  and  even  he  was 
not  a  Roman,  but  a  Dalmatian,  St.  Augustine,  who 
flourished  soon  after  St.  Jerome,  was  an  African. 
The  seven  great  ecumenical  councils  were  held  in 
Greek  cities :  the  bishops  of  Rome  were  never  pres- 
ent at  them,  because  they  were  acquainted  only  with 
their  own  Latin  language,  which  was  already  ex- 
ceedingly corrupted. 

The  hostility  between  Rome  and  Constantinople 
broke  out  in  452,  at  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  which 
had  been  assembled  to  decide  whether  Jesus  Christ 
had  possessed  two  natures  and  one  person,  or  two 
persons  with  one  nature.  It  was  there  decided  that 
the  Church  of  Constantinople  was  in  every  respect 
equal  to  that  of  Rome,  as  to  honors,  and  the  pa- 
triarch of  the  one  equal  in  every  respect  to  the  pa- 
triarch of  the  other.  The  pope,  St.  Leo,  admitted 
the  two  natures,  but  neither  he  nor  his  successors 
admitted  the  equality.  It  may  be  observed  that,  in 
this  dispute  about  rank  and  pre-eminence,  both  par- 
ties were  in  direct  opposition  to  the  injunction  of 
Jesus  Christ,  recorded  in  the  Gospel :    "There  shall 


172  Philosophical 

not  be  among  you  first  or  last."  Saints  are  saints, 
but  pride  will  insinuate  itself  everywhere.  The  same 
disposition  which  made  a  mason's  son,  who  had  been 
raised  to  a  bishopric,  foam  with  rage  because  he 
was  not  addressed  by  the  title  of  "my  lord,"  has  set 
the  whole  Christian  world  in  flames. 

The  Romans  were  always  less  addicted  to  dispu- 
tation, less  subtle,  than  the  Greeks,  but  they  were 
much  more  politic.  The  bishops  of  the  east,  while 
they  argued,  yet  remained  subjects:  the  bishop  of 
Rome,  without  arguments,  contrived  eventually  to 
establish  his  power  on  the  ruins  of  the  western  em- 
pire. And  what  Virgil  said  of  the  Scipios  and 
Caesars  might  be  said  of  the  popes : 

"Romanos  reru?n  doniinos  gentemque  iogatam." — .^neid, 
i.  286. 

This  mutual  hatred  led,  at  length,  to  actual  di- 
vision, in  the  time  of  Photius,  papa  or  overseer  of 
the  Byzantine  Church,  and  Nicholas  I.,  papa  or 
overseer  of  the  Roman  Church.  As,  unfortunately, 
an  ecclesiastical  quarrel  scarcely  ever  occurs  without 
something  ludicrous  being  attached  to  it,  it  hap- 
pened, in  this  instance,  that  the  contest  began  be- 
tween tv/o  patriarchs,  both  of  whom  were  eunuchs : 
Ignatius  and  Photius,  who  disputed  the  chair  of  Con- 
stantinople, were  both  emasculated.  This  mutila- 
tion depriving  them  of  the  power  of  becoming  nat- 
ural fathers,  they  could  become  fathers  only  of  the 
Church.  It  is  observed  that  persons  of  this  unfortu- 
nate description  are  meddling,  malignant,  and  plot- 


Dictionary.  173 

ting.  Ignatius  and  Photius  kept  the  whole  Greek 
court  in  a  state  of  turbulence. 

The  Latin,  Nicholas  I.,  having  taken  the  part 
of  Ignatius,  Photius  declared  him  a  heretic,  on  ac- 
count of  his  admitting  the  doctrine  that  the  breath 
of  God,  or  the  Holy  Spirit,  proceeded  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  contrary  to  the  unanimous  de- 
cision of  the  whole  Churchy  which  had  decided  that 
it  proceeded  from  the  Father  only. 

Besides  this  heretical  doctrine  respecting  the  pro- 
cession, Nicholas  ate,  and  permitted  to  be  eaten, 
eggs  and  cheese  in  Lent.  In  fine,  as  the  very  climax 
of  unbelief,  the  Roman  papa  had  his  beard  shaved, 
which,  to  the  Greek  papas,  was  nothing  less  than 
downright  apostasy;  as  Moses,  the  patriarchs,  and 
Jesus  Christ  were  always,  by  the  Greek  and  Latin 
painters,  pictured  with  beards. 

When,  in  879,  the  patriarch  Photius  was  restored 
to  his  seat  by  the  eighth  ecumenical  council — con- 
sisting of  four  hundred  bishops,  three  hundred  of 
whom  had  condemned  him  in  the  preceding  council 
— he  was  acknowledged  by  Pope  John  as  his 
brother.  Two  legates,  despatched  by  him  to  this 
council,  joined  the  Greek  Church,  and  declared  that 
whoever  asserted  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeded  from 
the  Father  and  the  Son  was  a  Judas.  But  the  prac- 
tice of  shaving  the  chin  and  eating  eggs  in  Lent 
being  persisted  in,  the  two  churches  always  re- 
mained divided. 

The  schism  was  completed  in   1053  and   1054, 


174  Philosophical 

when  Michael  Cerularius,  patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, publicly  condemned  the  bishop  of  Rome,  Leo 
IX.,  and  all  the  Latins,  adding  to  all  the  reproaches 
against  them  by  Photius  that,  contrary  to  the  prac- 
tice of  the  apostles,  they  dared  to  make  use  of  un- 
leavened bread  in  the  eucharist ;  that  they  wickedly 
ate  blood  puddings,  and  twisted  the  necks,  instead 
of  cutting  ofif  the  heads,  of  pigeons  intended  for  the 
table.  All  the  Latin  churches  in  the  Greek  empire 
were  shut  up,  and  all  intercourse  with  those  who 
ate  blood  puddings  was  forbidden. 

Pope  Leo  IX.  entered  into  serious  negotiation 
on  this  matter  with  the  Emperor  Constantine  Mon- 
omachus,  and  obtained  some  mitigations.  It  was 
precisely  at  this  period  that  those  celebrated  Nor- 
man gentlemen,  the  sons  of  Tancred  de  Hauteville, 
despising  at  once  the  pope  and  the  Greek  emperor, 
plundered  everything  they  could  in  Apulia  and  Cal- 
abria, and  ate  blood  puddings  with  the  utmost  hardi- 
hood. The  Greek  emperor  favored  the  pope  as 
much  as  he  was  able ;  but  nothing  could  reconcile 
the  Greeks  with  the  Latins.  The  Greeks  regarded 
their  adversaries  as  barbarians^,  who  did  not  know 
a  single  word  of  Greek.  The  irruption  of  the  Cru- 
saders, under  pretence  of  delivering  the  Holy  Land, 
but  in  reality  to  gain  possession  of  Constantinople, 
completed  the  hatred  entertained  against  the  Ro- 
mans. 

But  the  power  of  the  Latin  Church  increased 
every  day,  and  the  Greeks  were  at  length  gradually 


Dictionary.  175 

vanquished  by  the  Turks.  The  popes,  long  since,  be- 
came powerful  and  wealthy  sovereigns ;  the  whole 
Greek  Church  became  slaves  from  the  time  of  Ma- 
homet II.,  except  Russia,  which  was  then  a  bar- 
barous country,  and  in  which  the  Church  was  of  no 
account. 

Whoever  is  but  slightly  informed  of  the  state  of 
affair  in  the  Levant  knows  that  the  sultan  confers 
the  patriarchate  of  the  Greeks  by  a  cross  and  a  ring, 
without  any  apprehension  of  being  excommunica- 
ted, as  some  of  the  German  emperors  were  by  the 
popes,  for  this  same  ceremony. 

It  is  certainly  true  that  the  church  of  Stamboul 
has  preserved,  in  appearance,  the  liberty  of  choosing 
its  archbishop ;  but  never,  in  fact,  chooses  any  other 
than  the  person  pointed  out  by  the  Ottoman  court. 
This  preferment  costs,  at  present,  about  eighty  thou- 
sand francs,  which  the  person  chosen  contrives  to 
get  refunded  from  the  Greeks.  If  any  canon  of 
influence  and  wealth  comes  forward,  and  offers  the 
grand  vizier  a  large  sum,  the  titular  possessor  is 
deprived,  and  the  place  given  to  the  last  bidder; 
precisely  as  the  see  of  Rome  was  disposed  of,  in 
the  tenth  century,  by  Marozia  and  Theodora.  If 
the  titular  patriarch  resists,  he  receives  fifty  blows 
on  the  soles  of  his  feet,  and  is  banished.  Sometimes 
he  is  beheaded,  as  was  the  case  with  Lucas  Cyrille, 
in   1638. 

The  Grand  Turk  disposes  of  all  the  other  bishop- 
rics, in  the  same  manner,  for  money ;   and  the  price 


176  Philosophical 

charged  for  every  bishopric  under  Mahomet  II.  is 
always  stated  in  the  patent;  but  the  additional  sum 
paid  is  not  mentioned  in  it.  It  is  not  exactly  known 
what  a  Greek  priest  gives  for  his  bishopric. 

These  patents  are  rather  diverting  documents : 

"I  grant  to  N ,  a  Christian  priest,  this  order, 

for  the  perfection  of  his  felicity.  I  command  him 
to  reside  in  the  city  herein  named,  as  bishop  of  the 
infidel  Christians,  according  to  their  ancient  usage, 
and  their  vain  and  extravagant  ceremonies,  willing 
and  ordaining  that  all  Christians  of  that  district 
shall  acknowledge  him,  and  that  no  monk  or  priest 
shall  marry  without  his  permission."  That  is  to 
say,  without  paying  for  the  same. 

The  slavery  of  this  Church  is  equal  to  its  igno- 
rance. But  the  Greeks  have  only  what  they  deserve. 
They  were  wholly  absorbed  in  disputes  about  the 
light  on  Mount  Tabor,  and  the  umbilical  cord,  at 
the  very  time  of  the  taking  of  Constantinople. 

While  recording  these  melancholy  truths  we  en- 
tertain the  hope  that  the  Empress  Catherine  II.  will 
give  the  Greeks  their  liberty.  Would  she  could  re- 
store to  them  that  courage  and  that  intellect  which 
they  possessed  in  the  days  of  Miltiades  and  The- 
mistocles ;  and  that  Mount  Athos  supplied  good 
soldiers  and  fewer  monks. 

Of  the  Present  Greek  Church. 

The  Greek  Church  has  scarcely  deserved  the  tol- 
eration which  the  Mussulmans  granted  it.    The  fol- 


Dictionary.  177 

lowing  observations  are  from  Mr,  Porter,  the  Eng- 
lish ambassador  in  Turkey : 

"I  am  inclined  to  draw  a  veil  over  those  scan- 
dalous ■  disputes  between  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
on  the  subject  of  Bethlehem  and  the  holy  land,  as 
they  denominate  it.  The  unjust  and  odious  proceed- 
ings which  these  have  occasioned  between  them  are 
a  disgrace  to  the  Christian  name.  In  the  midst  of 
these  debates  the  ambassador  appointed  to  protect 
the  Romish  communion  becomes,  with  all  high  dig- 
nity, an  object  of  sincere  compassion. 

'Tn  every  country  where  the  Roman  Catholic 
prevails,  immense  sums  are  levied  in  order  to  sup- 
port against  the  Greek's  equivocal  pretensions  to 
the  precarious  possession  of  a  corner  of  the  world 
reputed  holy ;  and  to  preserve  in  the  hands  of  the 
monks  of  the  Latin  communion  the  remains  of  an 
old  stable  at  Bethlehem,  where  a  chapel  has  been 
erected,  and  where  on  the  doubtful  authority  of  oral 
tradition,  it  is  pretended  that  Christ  was  born ;  as 
also  a  tomb,  which  may  be,  and  most  probably  may 
not  be,  what  is  called  his  sepulchre ;  for  the  precise 
situation  of  these  two  places  is  as  little  ascertained 
as  that  which  contains  the  ashes  of  Caesar." 

What  renders  the  Greeks  yet  more  contemptible 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Turks  is  the  miracle  which  they 
perform  every  year  at  Easter.  The  poor  bishop  of 
Jerusalem  is  inclosed  in  a  small  cave,  which  is 
passed  ofif  for  the  tomb  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
with  packets  of  small  wax  tapers;    he  strikes  fire, 

Vol.  7 — 12 


lyS  Philosophical 

lights  one  of  these  little  tapers,  and  comes  out  of 
his  cave  exclaiming:  "The  fire  is  come  down  from 
heaven,  and  the  holy  taper  is  lighted."  All  the 
Greeks  immediately  buy  up  these  tapers,  and  the 
money  is  divided  between  the  Turkish  commander 
and  the  bishop.  The  deplorable  state  of  this  Church, 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Turk,  may  be  judged 
from  this  single  trait. 

The  Greek  Church  in  Russia  has  of  late  assumed 
a  much  more  respectable  consistency,  since  the  Em- 
press Catherine  IL  has  delivered  it  from  its  secular 
cares ;  she  has  taken  from  it  four  hundred  thou- 
sand slaves,  which  it  possessed.  It  is  now  paid  out 
of  the  imperial  treasury,  entirely  dependent  on  the 
government,  and  restricted  by  wise  laws ;  it  can 
effect  nothing  but  good,  and  is  every  day  becoming 
more  learned  and  useful.  It  possesses  a  preacher 
of  the  name  of  Plato,  who  has  composed  sermons 
which  the  Plato  of  antiquity  would  not  have  dis- 
dained. 

CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND. 

England  is  the  country  of  sects ;  "multce  sunt 
mansiones  in  domo  patris  mei:"  an  Englishman, 
like  a  free  man,  goes  to  heaven  which  way  he 
pleases.  However,  although  every  one  can  serve 
God  in  his  own  way,  the  national  religion — that 
in  which  fortunes  are  made — is  the  Episcopal,  called 
the    Church    of    England,    or    emphatically,    "The 


Dictionary.  179 

Church."  No  one  can  have  employment  of  any 
consequence,  either  in  England  or  Ireland,  without 
being  members  of  the  establishment.  This  reason- 
ing, which  is  highly  demonstrative,  has  converted  so 
many  nonconformists  that  at  present  there  is  not 
a  twentieth  part  of  the  nation  out  of  the  bosom  of 
the  dominant  church. 

The  English  clerg}-  have  retained  many  Catholic 
ceremonies,  and  above  all  that  of  receiving  tithes, 
with  a  very  scrupulous  attention.  They  also  pos- 
sess the  pious  ambition  of  ruling  the  people,  for 
what  village  rector  would  not  be  a  pope  if  he  could? 

With  regard  to  manners,  the  English  clergy  are 
more  decorous  than  those  of  France,  chiefly  be- 
cause the  ecclesiastics  are  brought  up  in  the  univer- 
sities of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  far  from  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  metropolis.  They  are  not  called  to 
the  dignities  of  the  Church  until  very  late,  and  at 
an  age  when  men,  having  no  other  passion  than  av- 
arice, their  ambition  is  less  aspiring.  Employments 
are,  in  England,  the  recompense  of  long  service  in 
the  church,  as  well  as  in  the  army.  You  do  not 
there  see  young  men  become  bishops  or  colonels  on 
leaving  college  ;  and,  moreover,  almost  all  the  priests 
are  married.  The  pedantry  and  awkwardness  of 
manners,  acquired  in  the  universities,  and  the  little 
commerce  they  have  with  women,  generally  oblige 
a  bishop  to  be  contented  with  the  one  which  belongs 
to  him.  The  clerg>'  go  sometimes  to  the  tavern, 
because  custom  permits  it,  and  if  they  get  "Bacchi 


i8o  Philosophical 

plenum"  it  is  in  the  college  style,  gravely  and  with 
due  decorum. 

That  indefinable  character  which  is  neither  ec- 
clesiastical nor  secular,  which  we  call  abbe,  is  un- 
known in  England.  The  ecclesiastics  there  are  gen- 
erally respected,  and  for  the  greater  part  pedants. 
When  the  latter  learn  that  in  France  young  men 
distinguished  by  their  debaucheries,  and  raised  to 
the  prelacy  by  the  intrigues  of  women,  publicly  make 
love ;  vie  with  each  other  in  the  composition  of 
love  songs ;  give  luxurious  suppers  every  day,  from 
which  they  arise  to  implore  the  light  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  boldly  call  themselves  the  apostles'  suc- 
cessors— they  thank  God  they  are  Protestants.  But 
what  then?  They  are  vile  heretics,  and  fit  only  for 
burning,  as  master  Francis  Rabelais  says,  "with  all 
the  devils."    Hence  I  drop  the  subject. 

CHURCH   PROPERTY. 

The  Gospel  forbids  those  who  would  attain  per- 
fection to  amass  treasures,  and  to  preserve  their 
temporal  goods :  "Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treas- 
ures upon  earth,  where  moth  and  rust  doth  corrupt, 
and  where  thieves  break  through  and  steal."  "If 
thou  wilt  be  perfect,  go  and  sell  that  thou  hast,  and 
give  to  the  poor."  "And  every  one  that  hath  for- 
saken houses,  or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or 
mother,  or  wife,  or  children,  or  lands,  for  my  name's 
sake,  shall  receive  an  hundred-fold,  and  shall  inherit 
everlasting  life." 


Dictionary.  i8i 

The  apostles  and  their  first  successors  would  not 
receive  estates ;  they  only  accepted  the  value,  and, 
after  having  provided  what  was  necessary  for  their 
subsistence,  they  distributed  the  rest  among  the 
poor.  Sapphira  and  Ananias  did  not  give  their 
goods  to  St.  Peter,  but  they  sold  them  and  brought 
him  the  price  :  "Vende  qucE  habes  et  da  pauperihus." 

The  Church  already  possessed  considerable  prop- 
erty at  the  close  of  the  third  century,  since  Diocletian 
and  Maximian  had  pronounced  the  confiscation  of  it, 
in  302. 

As  soon  as  Constantine  was  upon  the  throne  he 
permitted  the  churches  to  be  endowed  like  the  tem- 
ples of  the  ancient  religion,  and  from  that  time  the 
Church  acquired  rich  estates.  St.  Jerome  complains 
of  it  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Eustochium  :  "When  you 
see  them,"  says  he,  "accost  the  rich  widows  whom 
they  meet  with  a  soft  and  sanctified  air,  you  would 
think  that  their  hands  were  only  extended  to  give 
them  their  blessing;  but  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  to 
receive  the  price  of  their  hypocrisy." 

The  holy  priests  received  without  claiming.  Val- 
entinian  I.  thought  it  right  to  forbid  the  ecclesiastics 
from  receiving  anything  from  widows  and  women, 
by  will  or  otherwise.  This  law,  which  is  found  in 
the  Theodosian  code,  was  revoked  by  Marcian  and 
Justinian. 

Justinian,  to  favor  the  ecclesiastics,  forbade  the 
judges,  by  his  new  code  xviii.  chap,  ii.,  to  annul  the 
wills  made  in  favor  of  the  Church,  even  when  exe- 


1 82  Philosophical 

cuted  without  the  formalities  prescribed  by  the 
laws. 

Anastasius  had  enacted,  in  471,  that  church  prop- 
erty should  be  held  by  a  prescription,  or  title,  of 
forty  years'  duration.  Justinian  inserted  this  law 
in  his  code ;  but  this  prince,  who  was  continually 
changing  his  jurisprudence,  subsequently  extended 
this  proscription  to  a  century.  Immediately  several 
ecclesiastics,  unworthy  of  their  profession,  forged 
false  titles,  and  drew  out  of  the  dust  old  testaments, 
void  by  the  ancient  laws,  but  valid  according  to 
the  new.  Citizens  were  deprived  of  their  patrimo- 
nies by  fraud ;  and  possessions,  which  until  then 
Vv^ere  considered  inviolable,  were  usurped  by  the 
Church.  In  short,  the  abuse  was  so  crying  that  Jus- 
tinian himself  was  obliged  to  re-establish  the  dispo- 
sitions of  the  law  of  Anastasius,  by  his  novel  cxxxi. 
chap.  vi. 

The  possessions  of  the  Church  during  the  first 
five  centuries  of  our  era  were  regulated  by  deacons, 
who  distributed  them  to  the  clergy  and  to  the  poor. 
This  community  ceased  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, and  Church  property  was  divided  into  four 
parts — one  being  given  to  the  bishops,  another  to 
the  clergy,  a  third  to  the  place  of  worship,  and  the 
fourth  to  the  poor.  Soon  after  this  division  the 
bishops  alone  took  charge  of  the  whole  four  por- 
tions, and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  inferior  clergy 
are  generally  very  poor. 


Dictionary.  1 83 

Monks  possessing  Slaves. 

What  is  still  more  melancholy,  the  Benedictines, 
Bernardines,  and  even  the  Chartreux  are  permitted 
to  have  mortmains  and  slaves.  Under  their  domi- 
nation in  several  provinces  of  France  and  Germany 
are  still  recognized :  personal  slavery,  slavery  of 
property,  and  slavery  of  person  and  property.  Sla- 
very of  the  person  consists  in  the  incapacity  of  a 
man's  disposing  of  his  property  in  favor  of  his 
children,  if  they  have  not  always  lived  with  their 
father  in  the  same  house,  and  at  the  same  table,  in 
which  case  all  belongs  to  the  monks.  The  fortune 
of  an  inhabitant  of  Mount  Jura,  put  into  the  hands 
of  a  notary,  becomes,  even  in  Paris,  the  prey  of 
those  who  have  originally  embraced  evangelical  pov- 
erty at  Mount  Jura.  The  son  asks  alms  at  the  door  of 
the  house  which  his  father  has  built ;  and  the  monks, 
far  from  giving  them,  even  arrogate  to  themselves 
the  right  of  not  paying  his  father's  creditors,  and  of 
regarding  as  void  all  the  mortgages  on  the  house  of 
which  they  take  possession.  In  vain  the  widow 
throws  herself  at  their  feet  to  obtain  a  part  of  her 
dowry.  This  dowry,  these  debts,  this  paternal  prop- 
erty, all  belong,  by  divine  right,  to  the  monks.  The 
creditors,  the  widow,  and  the  children  are  all  left 
to  die  in  beggary. 

Real  slavery  is  that  which  is  effected  by  resi- 
dence. Whoever  occupies  a  house  within  the  do- 
main of  these  monks,  and  lives  in  it  a  year  and  a 
day,  becomes  their  serf  for  life.     It  has  sometimes 


1 84  Philosophical 

happened  that  a  French  merchant,  and  father  of  a 
family,  led  by  his  business  into  this  barbarous  coun- 
try, has  taken  a  house  for  a  year.  Dying  afterwards 
in  his  own  country,  in  another  province  of  France, 
his  widow  and  children  have  been  quite  astonished 
to  see  officers,  armed  with  writs,  come  and  take 
away  their  furniture,  sell  it  in  the  name  of  St. 
Claude,  and  drive  away  a  whole  family  from  the 
house  of  their  father. 

Mixed  slavery  is  that  which,  being  composed  of 
the  two,  is,  of  all  that  rapacity  has  ever  invented, 
the  most  execrable,  and  beyond  the  conception  even 
of  freebooters.  There  are,  then.  Christian  people 
groaning  in  a  triple  slavery  under  monks  who  have 
taken  the  vow  of  humility  and  poverty.  You  will 
ask  how  governments  suffer  these  fatal  contradic- 
tions? It  is  because  the  monks  are  rich  and  the 
vassals  are  poor.  It  is  because  the  monks,  to  pre- 
serve their  Hunnish  rights,  make  presents  to  their 
commissaries  and  to  the  mistresses  of  those  who 
might  interpose  their  authority  to  put  down  their* 
oppression.  The  strong  always  crush  the  weak; 
but  why  must  monks  be  the  stronger? 

CICERO. 

It  is  at  a  time  when,  in  France,  the  fine  arts  are 
in  a  state  of  decline ;  in  an  age  of  paradox,  and 
amidst  the  degradation  and  persecution  of  litera- 
ture and  philosophy,  that  an  attempt  is  made  to  tar- 
nish the  name  of  Cicero.    And  who  is  the  man  who 


Dictionary.  185 

thus  endeavors  to  throw  disgrace  upon  his  mem- 
ory ?  It  is  one  who  lends  his  services  in  defence  of 
persons  accused  Hke  himself ;  it  is  an  advocate,  who 
has  studied  eloquence  under  that  great  master ;  it 
is  a  citizen  who  appears  to  be,  like  Cicero,  animated 
by  devotion  to  the  public  good. 

In  a  book  entitled  ''Navigable  Canals,"  a  book 
abounding  in  grand  and  patriotic  rather  than  prac- 
tical views,  we  feel  no  small  astonishment  at  finding 
the  following  philippic  against  Cicero,  who  was 
never  concerned  in  digging  canals : 

"The  most  glorious  trait  in  the  history  of  Cicero 
is  the  destruction  of  Catiline's  conspiracy,  which, 
regarded  in  its  true  light,  produced  little  sensation 
at  Rome,  except  in  consequence  of  his  affecting  to 
give  it  importance.  The  danger  existed  much  more 
in  his  discourses  than  in  the  afifair  itself.  It  was 
an  enterprise  of  debauchees  which  it  was  easy  to 
disconcert.  Neither  the  principal  nor  the  accom- 
plices had  taken  the  slightest  measure  to  insure  the 
success  of  their  guilty  attempt.  There  was  nothing 
astonishing  in  this  singular  matter  but  the  bluster- 
ing which  attended  all  the  proceedings  of  the  con- 
sul, and  the  facility  with  which  he  was  permitted 
to  sacrifice  to  his  self-love  so  many  scions  of  illus- 
trious families. 

"Besides,  the  life  of  Cicero  abounds  in  traits  of 
meanness.  His  eloquence  was  as  venal  as  his  soul 
was  pusillanimous.  If  his  tongue  was  not  guided 
by  interest  it  was  guided  by  fear  or  hope.     The  de- 


1 86  Philosophical 

sire  of  obtaining  partisans  led  him  to  the  tribune, 
to  defend,  without  a  blush,  men  more  dishonorable, 
and  incalculably  more  dangerous,  than  Catihne.  His 
clients  were  nearly  all  miscreants,  and,  by  a  singular 
exercise  of  divine  justice,  he  at  last  met  death  from 
the  hands  of  one  of  those  wretches  whom  his  skill 
had  extricated  from  the  fangs  of  human  justice." 

We  answer  that,  ''regarded  in  its  true  light,"  the 
conspiracy  of  Catiline  excited  at  Rome  somewhat 
more  than  a  "slight  sensation."  It  plunged  her  into 
the  greatest  disturbance  and  danger.  It  was  ter- 
minated only  by  a  battle  so  bloody  that  there  is  no 
example  of  equal  carnage,  and  scarcely  any  of  equal 
valor.  All  the  soldiers  of  Catiline,  after  having 
killed  half  of  the  army  of  Petrius,  were  killed,  to  the 
last  man.  Catiline  perished,  covered  with  wounds, 
upon  a  heap  of  the  slain ;  and  all  were  found  with 
their  countenances  sternly  glaring  upon  the  enemy. 
This  was  not  an  enterprise  so  wonderfully  easy  as 
to  be  disconcerted.  Caesar  encouraged  it ;  Caesar 
learned  from  it  to  conspire  on  a  future  day  more  suc- 
cessfully against  his  country. 

"Cicero  defended,  without  a  blush,  men  more  dis- 
honorable, and  incalculably  more  dangerous  than 
Catiline !"  Was  this  when  he  defended  in  the  trib- 
une Sicily  against  Verres,  and  the  Roman  republic 
against  Antony?  Was  it  when  he  exhorted  the 
clemency  of  Caesar  in  favor  of  Ligarius  and  King 
Deiotarus?  or  when  he  obtained  the  right  of  cit- 
izenship for  the  poet  Archias?  or  when,  in  his  ex- 


Dictionary.  187 

quisite  oration  for  the  Manilian  law,  he  obtained 
every  Roman  suffrage  on  behalf  of  the  great  Pom- 
pey? 

He  pleaded  for  Milo,  the  murderer  of  Clodius ; 
but  Clodius  had  deserved  the  tragical  end  he  met 
with  by  his  outrages.  Clodius  had  been  involved 
in  the  conspiracy  of  Catiline ;  Clodius  was  his  mor- 
tal enemy.  He  had  irritated  Rome  against  him,  and 
had  punished  him  for  having  saved  Rome.  Milo 
was  his  friend. 

What !  is  it  in  our  time  that  any  one  ventures 
to  assert  that  God  punished  Cicero  for  having  de- 
fended a  military  tribune  called  Popilius  Lena,  and 
that  divine  vengeance  made  this  same  Popilius  Lena 
the  instrument  of  his  assassination  ?  No  one  knows 
whether  Popilius  Lena  was  guilty  of  the  crime  of 
which  he  was  acquitted,  after  Cicero's  defence  of 
him  upon  his  trial ;  but  all  know  that  the  monster 
was  guilty  of  the  most  horrible  ingratitude,  the  most 
infamous  avarice,  and  the  most  detestable  cruelty 
to  obtain  the  money  of  three  wretches  like  himself. 
It  was  reserved  for  our  times  to  hold  up  the  assas- 
sination of  Cicero  as  an  act  of  divine  justice.  The 
triumvirs  would  not  have  dared  to  do  it.  Every  age, 
before  the  present,  has  detested  and  deplored  the 
manner  of  his  death. 

Cicero  is  reproached  with  too  frequently  boast- 
ing that  he  had  saved  Rome,  and  with  being  too 
fond  of  glory.  But  his  enemies  endeavored  to  stain 
his  glory.     A  tyrannical  faction  condemned  him  to 


1 88  Philosophical 

exile,  and  razed  his  house,  because  he  had  preserved 
every  house  in  Rome  from  the  flames  which  Cati- 
line had  prepared  for  them.  Men  are  permitted  and 
even  bound  to  boast  of  their  services,  when  they 
meet  with  forgetfulness  or  ingratitude,  and  more 
particularly  when  they  are  converted  into  crimes. 

Scipio  is  still  admired  for  having  answered  his 
accusers  in  these  words :  "This  is  the  anniversary 
of  the  day  on  which  I  vanquished  Hannibal ;  let  us 
go  and  return  thanks  to  the  gods."  The  whole  as- 
sembly followed  him  to  the  Capitol,  and  our  hearts 
follow  him  thither  also,  as  we  read  the  passage  in 
history ;  though,  after  all,  it  would  have  been  bet- 
ter to  have  delivered  in  his  accounts  than  to  extri- 
cate himself  from  the  attack  by  a  bon  mot. 

Cicero,  in  the  same  manner,  excited  the  admira- 
tion of  the  Roman  people  when,  on  the  day  in  which 
his  consulship  expired,  being  obliged  to  take  the 
customary  oaths,  and  preparing  to  address  the 
people  as  was  usual,  he  was  hindered  by  the  tribune 
Matellus,  who  was  desirous  of  insulting  him.  Cic- 
ero had  begun  with  these  words :  'T  swear," — the 
tribune  interrupted  him,  and  declared  that  he  would 
not  suffer  him  to  make  a  speech.  A  great  murmur- 
ing was  heard.  Cicero  paused  a  moment,  and  ele- 
vating his  full  and  melodious  voice,  he*  exclaimed, 
as  a  short  substitute  for  his  intended  speech,  "I 
swear  that  I  have  saved  the  country."  The  assem- 
bly cried,  out  with  delight  and  enthusiasm,  "We 
swear  that  he  has  spoken  the  truth."    That  moment 


Dictionary.  189 

was  the  most  brilliant  of  his  life.  This  is  the  true 
way  of  loving  glory.  I  do  not  know  where  I  have 
read  these  unknown  verses: 

RomainStfaime  la  gloire,  et  ne  veux  point  m  en  taire 
Des  tratmux  des  humains  c'est  le  digne  salaire, 
Ce  tfest  qu'en  vous  gu'il  lafaut  acheter ; 
Qui  nose  la  voiiloir,  nose  la  ni&riter. 

Romans,  I  own  that  glory  I  regard 

Of  human  toil  the  only  just  reward; 

Placed  in  your  hands  the  immortal  guerdon  lies, 

And  he  will  ne'er  deserve  who  slights  the  prize. 

Can  we  despise  Cicero  if  we  consider  his  conduct 
in  his  government  of  Cilicia,  which  was  then  one 
of  the  most  important  provinces  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, in  consequence  of  its  contiguity  to  Syria  and 
the  Parthian  Empire.  Laodicea,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  cities  of  the  East,  was  the  capital  of  it. 
This  province  was  then  as  flourishing  as  it  is  at  the 
present  day  degraded  under  the  government  of  the 
Turks,  who  never  had  a  Cicero. 

He  begins  by  protecting  Ariobarzanes,  king  of 
Cappadocia,  and  he  refuses  the  presents  which  that 
king  desires  to  make  him.  The  Parthians  come  and 
attack  Antioch  in  a  state  of  perfect  peace.  Cicero 
hastily  marches  towards  it,  comes  up  with  the  Par- 
thians by  forced  marches  at  Mount  Taurus,  routs 
them,  pursues  them  in  their  retreat,  and  Arsaces, 
their  general,  is  slain,  with  a  part  of  his  army. 

Thence  he  rushes  on  Pendenissum,  the  capital  of 
a  country  in  alliance  with  the  Parthians,  and  takes 
it,  and  the  province  is  reduced  to  submission.  He 
instantly  directs  his   forces   against  the  tribes   of 


190  Philosophical 

people  called  Tiburanians,  and  defeats  them,  and 
his  troops  confer  on  him  the  title  of  Imperator, 
which  he  preserved  all  his  life.  He  would  have  ob- 
tained the  honors  of  a  triumph  at  Rome  if  he  had 
not  been  opposed  by  Cato,  who  induced  the  senate 
merely  to  decree  public  rejoicings  and  thanks  to  the 
gods,  when,  in  fact,  they  were  due  to  Cicero. 

If  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  equity  and  disinter- 
estedness of  Cicero  in  his  government ;  his  activity, 
his  affability — two  virtues  so  rarely  compatible ;  the 
benefits  which  he  accumulated  upon  the  people  over 
whom  he  was  an  absolute  sovereign ;  it  will  be  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  withhold  from  such  a  man  our 
esteem. 

If  we  reflect  that  this  is  the  same  man  who  first 
introduced  philosophy  into  Rome ;  that  his  "Tus- 
culan  Questions,"  and  his  book  "On  the  Nature  of 
the  Gods,"  are  the  two  noblest  works  that  ever  were 
written  by  mere  human  wisdom,  and  that  his  treat- 
ise, "De  OfUciis,"  is  the  most  useful  one  that  we 
possess  in  morals ;  we  shall  find  it  still  more  diffi- 
cult to  despise  Cicero.  We  pity  those  who  do  not 
read  him ;  we  pity  still  more  those  who  refuse  to 
do  him  justice. 

To  the  French  detractor  we  may  well  oppose  the 

lines  of  the  Spanish  Martial,  in  his  epigram  against 

Antony  (book  v.,  epig.  69,  v.  7)  : 

Quid Prosunt  sacrcE  pretiosa  silentia  linguae? 
IncipieJii  oinnes  pro  Cicerone  loqui. 

Why  still  his  tongue  with  vengeance  weak, 
For'Cicero  all  the  world  will  speak! 


Dictionary.  i^i 

See,  likewise,  what  is  said  by  Juvenal  (sat.  iv., 
V.  244)  : 

Roma  patrem  patriae  Ciceronem  libera  dixit. 
Freed  Rome,  him  father  of  his  country  called. 


CIRCUMCISION. 

When  Herodotus  narrates  what  he  was  told  by 
the  barbarians  among  whom  he  travelled,  he  nar- 
rates fooleries,  after  the  manner  of  the  greater  part 
of  travellers.  Thus,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he 
expects  to  be  believed  in  his  recital  of  the  adventure 
of  Gyges  and  Candaules ;  of  Arion,  carried  on  the 
back  of  a  dolphin ;  of  the  oracle  which  was  con- 
sulted on  what  Croesus  was  at  the  time  doing,  that 
he  was  then  going  to  dress  a  tortoise  in  a  stew-pan ; 
of  Darius'  horse,  which,  being  the  first  out  of  a  cer- 
tain number  to  neigh,  in  fact  proclaimed  his  master 
a  king ;  and  of  a  hundred  other  fables,  fit  to  amuse 
children,  and  to  be  compiled  by  rhetoricians.  But 
when  he  speaks  of  what  he  has  seen,  of  the  customs 
of  people  he  has  examined,  of  their  antiquities  which 
he  has  consulted,  he  then  addresses  himself  to  men. 

"It  appears,"  says  he,  in  his  book  "Euterpe," 
"tliat  the  inhabitants  of  Colchis  sprang  from  Egypt. 
I  judge  so  from  my  own  observations  rather  than 
from  hearsay ;  for  I  found  that,  at  Colchis,  the  an- 
cient Egyptians  were  more  frequently  recalled  to 
my  mind  than  the  ancient  customs  of  Colchis  were 
when  I  w-as  in  Egypt. 


1 92  Philosophical 

"These  inhabitants  of  the  shores  of  the  Euxine 
Sea  stated  themselves  to  be  a  colony  founded  by  Se- 
sostris.  As  for  myself,  I  should  think  this  probable, 
not  merely  because  they  are  dark  and  woolly-haired, 
but  because  the  inhabitants  of  Colchis,  Egypt,  and 
Ethiopia  are  the  only  people  in  the  world  who,  from 
time  immemorial,  have  practised  circumcision ;  for 
the  Phoenicians,  and  the  people  of  Palestine,  con- 
fess that  they  adopted  the  practice  from  the  Egyp- 
tians. The  Syrians,  who  at  present  inhabit  the  banks 
of  Thermodon,  acknowledge  that  it  is,  compara- 
tively, but  recently  that  they  have  conformed  to  it. 
It  is  principally  from  this  usage  that  they  are  con- 
sidered of  EgA'ptian  origin. 

"With  respect  to  Ethiopia  and  Egypt,  as  this  cer- 
emony is  of  great  antiquity  in  both  nations,  I  can- 
not by  any  means  ascertain  which  has  derived  it 
from  the  other.  It  is,  however,  probable  that  the 
Ethiopians  received  it  from  the  Egyptians ;  while, 
on  the  contrary,  the  Phoenicians  have  abolished  the 
practice  of  circumcising  new-born  children  since  the 
enlargement  of  their  commerce  with  the  Greeks." 

From  this  passage  of  Herodotus  it  is  evident 
that  many  people  had  adopted  circumcision  from 
Egypt,  but  no  nation  ever  pretended  to  have  re- 
ceived it  from  the  Jews.  To  whom,  then,  can  we 
attribute  the  origin  of  this  custom  ;  to  a  nation  from 
whom  five  or  six  others  acknowledge  they  took  it, 
or  to  another  nation,  much  less  powerful,  less  com- 
mercial, less  warlike,  hid  away  in  a  corner  of  Ara- 


Dictionary.  1 93 

bia  Petraea,  and  which  never  communicated  any  one 
of  its  usages  to  any  other  people? 

The  Jews  admit  that  they  were,  many  ages  since, 
received  in  Egypt  out  of  charity.  Is  it  not  probable 
that  the  lesser  people  imitated  a  usage  of  the  su- 
perior one,  and  that  the  Jews  adopted  some  customs 
from  their  masters  ? 

Clement  of  Alexandria  relates  that  Pythagoras, 
when  travelling  among  the  Egyptians,  was  obliged 
to  be  circumcised  in  order  to  be  admitted  to  their 
mysteries.  It  was,  therefore,  absolutely  necessary 
to  be  circumcised  to  be  a  priest  in  Egypt.  Those 
priests  existed  when  Joseph  arrived  in  Eg}^pt.  The 
government  was  of  great  antiquity,  and  the  ancient 
ceremonies  of  the  country  were  observed  with  the 
most  scrupulous  exactness. 

The  Jews  acknowledge  that  they  remained  in 
Egypt  two  hundred  and  five  years.  They  say  that, 
during  that  period,  they  did  not  become  circumcised. 
It  is  clear,  then,  that  for  two  hundred  and  five  years 
the  Egyptians  did  not  receive  circumcision  from  the 
Jews.  Would  they  have  adopted  it  from  them  after 
the  Jews  had  stolen  the  vessels  which  they  had  lent 
them,  and,  according  to  their  own  account,  fled  with 
their  plunder  into  the  wilderness?  Will  a  master 
adopt  the  principal  symbol  of  the  religion  of  a  rob- 
bing and  runaway  slave  ?    It  is  not  in  human  nature. 

It  is  stated  in  the  Book  of  Joshua  that  the  Jews 
were  circumcised  in  the  wilderness.  "I  have  deliv- 
ered you  from  what  constituted  your  reproach 
Vol.  7-13 


194  Philosophical 

among  the  Egyptians."  But  what  could  this  re- 
proach be,  to  a  people  living  between  Phoenicians, 
Arabians,  and  Egyptians,  but  something  which  ren- 
dered them  contemptible  to  these  three  nations? 
How  effectually  is  that  reproach  removed  by  ab- 
stracting a  small  portion  of  the  prepuce  ?  Alust  not 
this  be  considered  the  natural  meaning  of  the  pass- 
age? 

The  Book  of  Genesis  relates  that  Abraham 
had  been  circumcised  before.  But  Abraham  trav- 
elled in  Egypt,  which  had  been  long  a  flourishing 
kingdom,  governed  by  a  powerful  king.  There  is 
nothing  to  prevent  the  supposition  that  circumcision 
was,  in  this  very  ancient  kingdom,  an  established 
usage.  Moreover,  the  circumcision  of  Abraham  led 
to  no  continuation ;  his  posterity  was  not  circum- 
cised till  the  time  of  Joshua. 

But,  before  the  time  of  Joshua,  the  Jews,  by  their 
own  acknowledgment,  adopted  many  of  the  customs 
of  the  Eg}'ptians.  They  imitated  them  in  many  sac- 
rifices, in  many  ceremonies ;  as,  for  example,  in  the 
fasts  observed  on  the  eves  of  the  feasts  of  Isis ;  in 
ablutions ;  In  the  custom  of  shaving  the  heads  of  the 
priests ;  in  the  incense,  the  branched  candle-stick, 
the  sacrifice  of  the  red-haired  cow,  the  purification 
with  hyssop,  the  abstinence  from  swine's  flesh,  the 
dread  of  using  the  kitchen  utensils  of  foreigners ; 
everything  testifies  that  the  little  people  of  Hebrews, 
notwithstanding  its  aversion  to  the  great  Egyptian 
nation,  had  retained  a  vast  number  of  the  usages 


Dictionary.  195 

of  its  former  masters.  The  goat  Azazel,  which  was 
despatched  into  the  wilderness  laden  with  the  sins 
of  the  people,  was  a  visible  imitation  of  an  Egyptian 
practice.  The  rabbis  are  agreed,  even,  that  the  word 
Azazel  is  not  Hebrew.  Nothing,  therefore,  could 
exist  to  have  prevented  the  Hebrews  from  imitating 
the  Egyptians  in  circumcision,  as  the  Arabs,  their 
neighbors,  did. 

It  is  by  no  means  extraordinary  that  God,  who 
sanctified  baptism,  a  practice  so  ancient  among  the 
Asiatics,  should  also  have  sanctified  circumcision, 
not  less  ancient  among  the  Africans.  We  have  al- 
ready remarked  that  he  has  a  sovereign  right  to 
attach  his  favors  to  any  symbol  that  he  chooses. 

As  to  what  remains  since  the  time  when,  under 
Joshua,  the  Jewish  people  became  circumcised,  it 
has  retained  that  usage  down  to  the  present  day. 
The  Arabs,  also,  have  faithfully  adhered  to  it ;  but 
the  Egyptians,  who,  in  the  earlier  ages,  circumcised 
both  their  males  and  females,  in  the  course  of  time 
abandoned  the  practice  entirely  as  to  the  latter,  and 
at  last  applied  it  solely  to  priests,  astrologers,  and 
prophets.  This  we  learn  from  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria, and  Origen.  In  fact,  it  is  not  clear  that  the 
Ptolemies  ever  received  circumcision. 

The  Latin  authors  who  treat  the  Jews  with  such 
profound  contempt  as  to  apply  to  them  in  derision 
the  expressions,  "curtus  Apella,"  "credat  Judceus 
Apella,"  "curti  Judcei,"  never  apply  such  epithets  to 
the  Egyptians.     The  whole  population  of  Egypt  is 


196  Philosophical 

at  present  circumcised,  but  for  another  reason  than 
that  which  operated  formerly ;  namely,  because  Ma- 
hometanism  adopted  the  ancient  circumcision  of 
Arabia.  It  is  this  Arabian  circumcision  which  has 
extended  to  the  Ethiopians,  among  whom  males  and 
females  are  both  still  circumcised. 

We  must  acknowledge  that  this  ceremony  ap- 
pears at  first  a  very  strange  one ;  but  we  should  re- 
member that,  from  the  earliest  times,  the  oriental 
priests  consecrated  themselves  to  their  deities  by 
peculiar  marks.  An  ivy  leaf  was  indented  with  a 
graver  on  the  priests  of  Bacchus.  Lucian  tells  us 
that  those  devoted  to  the  goddess  Isis  impressed 
characters  upon  their  wrist  and  neck.  The  priests 
of  Cybele  made  themselves  eunuchs. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  Egyptians,  who 
revered  the  instrument  of  human  production,  and 
bore  its  image  in  pomp  in  their  processions,  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  offering  to  Isis  and  Osiris 
through  whom  everything  on  earth  was  produced, 
a  small  portion  of  that  organ  with  which  these  dei- 
ties had  connected  the  perpetuation  of  the  human 
species.  Ancient  oriental  manners  are  so  prodig- 
iously different  from  our  own  that  scarcely  anything 
will  appear  extraordinary  to  a  man  of  even  but  little 
reading.  A  Parisian  is  excessively  surprised  when 
he  is  told  that  the  Hottentots  deprive  their  male 
children  of  one  of  the  evidences  of  virility.  The 
Hottentots  are  perhaps  surprised  that  the  Parisians 
preserve  both. 


Dictionary.  197 

CLERK— CLERGY. 

There  may  be  something  perhaps  still  remain- 
ing for  remark  under  this  head,  even  after  Du 
Cange's  "Dictionary"  and  the  "Encyclopa2dia."  We 
may  observe,  for  instance,  that  so  wonderful  was 
the  respect  paid  to  learning,  about  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries,  that  a  custom  was  introduced  and 
follov>  ed  in  France,  in  Germany,  and  in  England,  of 
remitting  the  punishment  of  the  halter  to  every  con- 
demned criminal  who  was  able  to  read.  So  neces- 
sary to  the  state  was  every  man  who  possessed  such 
an  extent  of  knowledge.  William  the  Bastard,  the 
conqueror  of  England,  carried  thither  this  custom. 
It  was  called  benefit  of  clergy — "heneiicum  cleri- 
conim  aut  clergicorum." 

We  have  remarked,  in  more  places  than  one,  that 
old  usages,  lost  in  other  countries,  are  found  again 
in  England,  as  in  the  island  of  Samothrace  were  dis- 
covered the  ancient  mysteries  of  Orpheus.  To  this 
day  the  benefit  of  clergy  subsists  am.ong  the  Eng- 
Hsh,  in  all  its  vigor,  for  manslaughter,  and  for  any 
theft  not  exceeding  a  certain  amount  of  value,  and 
being  the  first  offence.  The  prisoner  who  is  able  to 
read  demands  his  "benefit  of  clergy,"  w^hich  cannot 
be  refused  him.  The  judge  refers  to  the  chaplain  of 
the  prison,  who  presents  a  book  to  the  prisoner,  upon 
which  the  judge  puts  the  question  to  the  chaplain, 
''Legit?"  "Does  he  read?"  The  chaplain  replies: 
"Legit  tot  clericus."    "He  reads  like  a  clergyman." 


198  Philosophical 

After  this  the  punishment  of  the  prisoner  is  re- 
stricted to  the  application  of  a  hot  branding  iron  to 
the  palm  of  his  hand. 

Of  the  Celibacy  of  the  Clergy. 

It  is  asked  whether,  in  the  first  ages  of  the 
Church,  marriage  was  permitted  to  the  clergy,  and 
when  it  was  forbidden?  It  is  unquestionable  that 
the  clerg}^  of  the  Jewish  religion,  far  from  being 
bound  to  celibacy,  were,  on  the  contrary,  urged  to 
marriage,  not  merely  by  the  example  of  their 
patriarchs,  but  by  the  disgrace  attached  to  not  leav- 
ing posterity. 

In  the  times,  however,  that  preceded  the  first 
calamities  which  befell  the  Jews,  certain  sects  of 
rigorists  arose — Essenians,  Judaites,  Therapeutze, 
Herodians ;  in  some  of  which — the  Essenians  and 
Therapeutse,  for  examples — the  most  devout  of  the 
sect  abstained  from  marriage.  This  continence  was 
an  imitation  of  the  chastity  of  the  vestals,  instituted 
by  Numa  Pompilius;  of  the  daughter  of  Pythag- 
oras, who  founded  a  convent;  of  the  priests  of 
Diana ;  of  the  Pythia  of  Delphos ;  and,  in  more  re- 
mote antiquity,  of  the  priestesses  of  Apollo,  and 
even  of  the  priestesses  of  Bacchus.  The  priests  of 
C}'bele  not  only  bound  themselves  by  vows  of 
chastity,  but,  to  preclude  the  violation  of  their  vows, 
became  eunuchs.  Plutarch,  in  the  eighth  question 
of  his  "Table-talk,"  informs  us  that,  in  Egypt,  there 
are  colleges  of  priests  which  renounce  marriage. 


Dictionary.  199 

The  first  Christians,  although  professing  to  lead 
a  life  as  pure  as  that  of  the  Essenians  and  Thera- 
peutse,  did  not  consider  celibacy  as  a  virtue.  We 
have  seen  that  nearly  all  the  apostles  and  disciples 
were  married.  St.  Paul  writes  to  Titus :  "Choose 
for  a  priest  him  who  is  the  husband  of  one  wife, 
having  believing  children,  and  not  under  accusation 
of  dissoluteness."  He  says  the  same  to  Timothy : 
"Let  the  superintendent  be  the  husband  of  one 
wife."  He  seems  to  think  so  highly  of  marriage 
that,  in  the  same  epistle  to  Timothy,  he  says :  "The 
wife,  notwithstanding  her  prevarication,  shall  be 
saved  in  child-bearing." 

The  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Nice,  on  the 
subject  of  married  priests,  deserve  great  attention. 
Some  bishops,  according  to  the  relations  of  Sozo- 
men  and  Socrates,  proposed  a  law  commanding 
bishops  and  priests  thenceforward  to  abstain  from 
their  wives ;  but  St.  Paphnucius  the  Martyr,  bishop 
of  Thebes,  in  Egypt,  strenuously  opposed  it ;  ob- 
serving, "that  marriage  was  chastity" ;  and  the 
council  adopted  his  opinion.  Suidas,  Gelasius, 
Cesicenus,  Cassiodorus,  and  Nicephorus  Callistus, 
record  precisely  the  same  thing.  The  council  merely 
forbade  the  clergy  from  living  with  agapetse,  or  fe- 
male associates  besides  their  own  wives,  except  their 
mothers,  sisters,  aunts,  and  others  whose  age  would 
preclude  suspicion. 

After  that  time,  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  was 
recommended,     without     being     commanded.      St. 


200  Philosophical 

Jerome,  a  devout  recluse,  was,  of  all  the  fathers, 
highest  in  his  eulogiums  of  the  ceHbacy  of  priests ; 
yet  he  resolutely  supports  the  cause  of  Carterius,  a 
Spanish  bishop,  who  had  been  married  twice. 
"Were  I,"  says  he,  "to  enumerate  all  the  bishops 
who  have  entered  into  second  nuptials,  I  should 
name  as  many  as  were  present  at  the  Council  of 
Rimini" — "Tantus  numerus  congregahitur  tit  Rimi- 
nensis  synodus  superetur." 

The  examples  of  clergy^men  married,  and  living 
with  their  wives,  are  innumerable.  Sydonius, 
bishop  of  Clermont,  in  Auvergne,  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, married  Papianilla,  daughter  of  the  Emperor 
Avitus,  and  the  house  of  Polignac  claims  descent 
from  this  marriage.  Simplicius,  bishop  of  Bourges, 
had  two  children  by  his  wife  Palladia.  St.  Gregory 
of  Nazianzen  was  the  son  of  another  Gregory, 
bishop  of  Nazianzen,  and  of  Nonna,  by  whom  that 
bishop  had  three  children — Cesarius,  Gorgonia,  and 
the  saint. 

In  the  Roman  decretals,  under  the  canon  Osius, 
we  find  a  very  long  list  of  bishops  who  were  the 
sons  of  priests.  Pope  Osius  himself  was  the  son  of 
a  sub-deacon  Stephen;  and  Pope  Boniface  I.,  son 
of  the  priest  Jocondo.  Pope  Felix  III.  was  the  son 
of  Felix,  a  priest,  and  was  himself  one  of  the  grand- 
fathers of  Gregory  the  Great.  The  priest  Projectus 
was  the  father  of  John  II. ;  and  Gordian,  the  father 
of  Agapet.  Pope  Sylvester  was  the  son  of  Pope 
Hormisdas.    Theodore  I.  was  born  of  a  marriage  of 


Dictionary.  20i 

Theodore,  patriarch  of  Jerusalem;  a  circumstance 
which  should  produce  the  reconciliation  of  the  two 
Churches. 

At  length,  after  several  councils  had  been  held 
without  effect  on  the  subject  of  the  celibacy,  which 
ought  always  to  accompany  the  priesthood,  Pope 
Gregory  excommunicated  all  married  priests ;  either 
to  add  respectability  to  the  Church,  by  the  greater 
rigor  of  its  discipline,  or  to  attach  more  closely  to 
the  court  of  Rome  the  bishops  and  priests  of  other 
countries,  who  would  thus  have  no  other  family 
than  the  Church.  This  law  was  not  established  with- 
out great  opposition. 

It  is  a  very  remarkable  circumstance  that  the 
Council  of  Basel,  having  deposed,  at  least  nominally, 
Pope  Eugenius  IV.,  and  elected  Amadeus  of  Savoy, 
many  bishops  having  objected  against  that  prince 
that  he  had  been  married,  ^neas  Sylvius,  who  was 
afterwards  pope,  under  the  name  of  Pius  II.,  sup- 
ported the  election  of  Amadeus  in  these  words : 
"Non  solum  qui  uxorem  habiiif,  sed  uxoreni  hahens, 
potest  assumere" — "Not  only  may  he  be  made  a  pope 
who  has  been  married,  but  also  he  who  is  so." 

This  Pius  II.  was  consistent.  Peruse  his  letters 
to  his  mistress^  in  the  collection  of  his  works.  He 
was  convinced,  that  to  defraud  nature  of  her  rights 
was  absolute  insanity,  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
man  not  to  destroy,  but  to  control  her. 

However  this  may  be,  since  the  Council  of  Trent 
there  has  no  longer  been  any  dispute  about  the  celi- 


•202  Philosophical 

bacy  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  ;  there  have  been 
only  desires.  All  Protestant  communions  are,  on 
this  point,  in  opposition  to  Rome. 

In  the  Greek  Church,  which  at  present  extends 
from  the  frontiers  of  China  to  Cape  Matapan,  the 
priests  may  marry  once.  Customs  everywhere  vary  ; 
discipline  changes  conformably  to  time  and  place. 
We  here  only  record  facts ;  we  enter  into  no  con- 
trovers}-. 

Of  Clerks  of  the  Closet,  Since  Denominated  Secre- 
taries of  State  and  Ministers. 

Clerks  of  the  closet,  clerks  of  the  king,  more  re- 
cently denominated  secretaries  of  state,  in  France 
and  England,  were  originally  the  "king's  notaries." 
They  were  afterwards  called  "secretaries  of  orders" 
— secretaires  dcs  comniandcniens.  This  we  are  in- 
formed of  by  the  learned  and  laborious  Pasquier. 
His  authority  is  unquestionable,  as  he  had  under  his 
inspection  the  registers  of  the  chamber  of  accounts, 
which,  in  our  own  times,  have  been  destroyed  by  fire. 

At  the  unfortunate  peace  of  Cateau-Cambresis, 
a  clerk  of  Philip  II.,  having  taken  the  title  of  secre- 
tary of  state,  de  I'Aubespine,  who  was  secretary  of, 
orders  to  the  king  of  France,  and  his  notary,  took 
that  title  likewise,  that  the  honors  of  both  might  be 
equal,  whatever  might  be  the  case  with  their  emolu- 
ments. 

In  England,  before  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII., 
there  was  onlv  one  secretary  of  the  king,  who  stood 


Dictionary.  203 

while  he  presented  memorials  and  petitions  to  the 
council.  Henry  VIII.  appointed  two,  and  conferred 
on  them  the  same  titles  and  prerogatives  as  in  Spain. 
The  great  nobles  did  not,  at  that  period,  accept 
these  situations ;  but,  in  time,  they  have  become  of 
so  much  consequence  that  peers  of  the  realm  and 
commanders  of  armies  are  now  invested  with  them. 
Thus  everything  changes.  There  is  at  present  no 
relic  in  France  of  the  government  of  Hugh  Capet, 
nor  in  England  of  the  administration  of  William 
the  Bastard. 

CLIMATE. 

It  is  certain  that  the  sun  and  atmosphere  mark 
their  empire  on  all  the  productions  of  nature,  from 
man  to  mushrooms.  In  the  grand  age  of  Louis 
XIV.,  the  ingenious  Fontenelle  remarked : 

"One  might  imagine  that  the  torrid  and  two 
frigid  zones  are  not  well  suited  to  the  sciences. 
Down  to  the  present  day  they  have  not  travelled 
beyond  Egypt  and  Mauritania,  on  the  one  side,  nor 
on  the  other  beyond  Sweden.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
owing  to  mere  chance  that  they  are  retained  within 
Mount  Atlas  and  the  Baltic  Sea.  We  know  not 
whether  these  may  not  be  the  limits  appointed  to 
them  by  nature,  or  whether  we  may  ever  hope  to  see 
great  authors  among  Laplanders  or  negroes." 

Chardin,  one  of  those  travellers  who  reason  and 
investigate,  goes  still  further  than  Fontenelle,  when 
speaking  of   Persia..    "The  temperature  of   warm 


204  Philosophical 

climates,"  says  he,  "enervates  the  mind  as  well  as 
the  body,  and  dissipates  that  fire  which  the  imagina- 
tion requires  for  invention.  In  such  climates  men 
are  incapable  of  the  long  studies  and  intense  appli- 
cation which  are  necessary  to  the  production  of 
first-rate  works  in  the  liberal  and  mechanic  arts," 
etc. 

Chardin  did  not  consider  that  Sadi  and  Lokman 
were  Persians.  He  did  not  recollect  that  Archi- 
medes belonged  to  Sicily,  where  the  heat  is  greater 
than  in  three-fourths  of  Persia.  He  forgot  that 
Pythagoras  formerly  taught  geometry  to  the  Brah- 
mins. The  Abbe  Dubos  supported  and  developed, 
as  well  as  he  was  able,  the  opinion  of  Chardin. 

One  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  them,  Bodin 
made  it  the  foundation  of  his  system  in  his  "Re- 
public," and  in  his  "Method  of  History" ;  he  asserts 
that  the  influence  of  climate  is  the  principle  both  of 
the  government  and  the  religion  of  nations.  Dio- 
dorus  of  Sicily  was  of  the  same  opinion  long  before 
Bodin. 

The  author  of  the  "Spirit  of  Laws,"  without 
quoting  any  authority,  carried  this  idea  farther  than 
Chardin  and  Bodin.  A  certain  part  of  the  nation 
believed  him  to  have  first  suggested  it,  and  imputed 
it  to  him  as  a  crime.  This  was  quite  in  character 
with  that  part  of  the  nation  alluded  to.  There  are 
everywhere  men  who  possess  more  zeal  than  un- 
derstanding. 

We  might  ask  those  who  maintain  that  climate 


Dictionary.  205 

does  everything,  why  the  Emperor  JuHan,  in  his 
"Misopogon,"  says  that  what  pleased  him  in  the 
Parisians  was  the  gravity  of  their  characters  and 
the  severity  of  their  manners ;  and  why  these  Paris- 
ians, without  the  shghtest  change  of  cHmate,  are 
now  hke  playful  children,  at  whom  the  government 
punishes  and  smiles  at  the  same  moment,  and  who 
themselves,  the  moment  after,  also  smile  and  sing 
lampoons  upon  their  masters. 

Why  are  the  Egyptians,  who  are  described  as 
having  been  still  more  grave  than  the  Parisians,  at 
present  the  most  lazy,  frivolous,  and  cowardly  of 
people,  after  having,  as  we  are  told,  conquered  the 
whole  world  for  their  pleasure,  under  a  king  called 
Sesostris?  Why  are  there  no  longer  Anacreons, 
Aristotles,  or  Zeuxises  at  Athens?  Whence  comes 
it  that  Rome,  instead  of  its  Ciceros,  Catos,  and 
Livys,  has  merely  citizens  who  dare  not  speak  their 
minds,  and  a  brutalized  populace,  whose  supreme 
happiness  consists  in  having  oil  cheap,  and  in  gazing 
at  processions? 

Cicero,  in  his  letters,  is  occasionally  very  jocular 
on  the  English.  He  desires  his  brother  Quintus, 
Caesar's  lieutenant,  to  inform  him  whether  he  has 
found  any  great  philosophers  among  them,  in  his 
expedition  to  Britain.  He  little  suspected  that  that 
country  would  one  day  produce  mathematicians 
whom  he  could  not  understand.  Yet  the  climate 
has  not  at  all  changed,  and  the  sky  of  London  is  as 
cloudy  now  as  it  was  then. 


2o6  Philosophical 

Everything  changes,  both  in  bodies  and  minds, 
by  time.  Perhaps  the  Americans  will  in  some 
future  period  cross  the  sea  to  instruct  Europeans 
in  the  arts.  Climate  has  some  influence,  govern- 
ment a  hundred  times  more ;  religion  and  govern- 
ment combined  more  still. 

Influence  of  Climate. 

Climate  influences  religion  in  respect  to  cere- 
monies and  usages.  A  legislator  could  have  experi- 
enced no  difiiculty  in  inducing  the  Indians  to  bathe 
in  the  Ganges  at  certain  appearances  of  the  moon ; 
it  is  a  high  gratification  to  them.  Had  any  one 
proposed  a  like  bath  to  the  people  who  inhabit  the 
banks  of  the  Dwina,  near  Archangel,  he  would  have 
been  stoned.  Forbid  pork  to  an  Arab,  who  after 
eating  this  species  of  animal  food  (the  most  misera- 
ble and  disgusting  in  his  own  country)  would  be 
affected  by  leprosy,  he  will  obey  you  with  joy;  pro- 
hibit it  to  a  Westphalian,  and  he  will  be  tempted  to 
knock  you  down.  Abstinence  from  wine  is  a  good 
precept  of  religion  in  Arabia,  where  orange,  citron, 
and  lemon  waters  are  necessary  to  health.  Ma- 
homet would  not  have  forbidden  wine  in  Switzer- 
land, especially  before  going  to  battle. 

There  are  usages  merely  fanciful.  Why  did  the 
priests  of  Eg}'pt  devise  circumcision?  It  was  not 
for  the  sake  of  health.  Cambyses,  who  treated  as 
they  deserved  both  them  and  their  bull  Apis,  the 


Dictionary.  207 

courtiers  of  Cambyses,  and  his  soldiers,  enjoyed  per- 
fectly good  health  without  such  mutilation.  Climate 
has  no  peculiar  influence  over  this  particular  portion 
of  the  person  of  a  priest.  The  offering  in  question 
was  made  to  Isis,  probably  on  the  same  principle  as 
the  firstlings  of  the  fruits  of  the  earth  were  every- 
where offered.  It  was  typical  of  an  offering  of  the 
first  fruits  of  life. 

Religions  have  always  turned  on  two  pivots — 
forms  of  ceremonies,  and  faith.  Forms  and  cere- 
monies depend  much  on  climate ;  faith  not  at  all. 
A  doctrine  will  be  received  with  equal  facility  under 
the  equator  or  near  the  pole.  It  will  be  afterwards 
equally  rejected  at  Batavia  and  the  Orcades,  while 
it  will  be  maintained,  tinguibus  ct  rostro — with  tooth 
and  nail — at  Salamanca.  This  depends  not  on  sun 
and  atmosphere,  but  solely  upon  opinion,  that  fickle 
empress  of  the  world. 

Certain  libations  of  wine  will  be  naturally  en- 
joined in  a  country  abounding  in  vineyards ;  and  it 
would  never  occur  to  the  mind  of  any  legislator  to 
institute  sacred  mysteries,  which  could  not  be  cele- 
brated without  wine,  in  such  a  country  as  Norway. 

It  will  be  expressly  commanded  to  burn  incense 
in  the  court  of  a  temple  where  beasts  are  killed  in 
honor  of  the  Divinity,  and  for  the  priests'  supper. 
This  slaughter-house,  called  a  temple,  would  be  a 
place  of  abominable  infection,  if  it  were  not  con- 
tinually purified ;  and  without  the  use  of  aromatics. 


2o8  Philosophical  ^ 

the  religion  of  the  ancients  would  have  introduced 
the  plague.  The  interior  of  the  temple  was  even 
festooned  with  flowers  to  sweeten  the  air. 

The  cow  will  not  be  sacrificed  in  the  burning  ter- 
ritory of  the  Indian  peninsula,  because  it  supplies 
the  necessary  article  of  milk,  and  is  very  rare  in 
arid  and  barren  districts,  and  because  its  flesh,  being 
dry  and  tough,  and  yielding  but  little  nourishment, 
would  afford  the  Brahmins  but  miserable  cheer. 
On  the  contrary,  the  cow  will  be  considered  sacred, 
in  consequence  of  its  rareness  and  utility. 

The  temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon,  where  the  heat 
is  excessive,  will  be  entered  only  with  bare  feet.  To 
perform  his  devotions  at  Copenhagen,  a  man  re- 
quires his  feet  to  be  warm  and  well  covered. 

It  is  not  thus  with  doctrine.  Polytheism  has 
been  believed  in  all  climates ;  and  it  is  equally  easy 
for  a  Crim  Tartar  and  an  inhabitant  of  Mecca  to 
acknowledge  one  only  incommunicable  God,  neither 
begotten  nor  begetting.  It  is  by  doctrine,  more  than 
by  rites,  that  a  religion  extends  from  one  climate 
to  another.  The  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God 
passed  rapidly  from  Medina  to  Mount  Caucasus. 
Climate,  then,  yields  to  opinion. 

The  Arabs  said  to  the  Turks :  "We  practiced 
the  ceremony  of  circumcision  in  Arabia  without 
very  well  knowing  why.  It  was  an  ancient  usage 
of  the  priests  of  Egypt  to  offer  to  Oshiret,  or  Osiris, 
a  small  portion  of  what  they  considered  most  valu- 
able.    We  had  adopted  this  custom  three  thousand 


Dictionary.  209 

years  before  we  became  Mahometans.  You  will  be- 
come circumcised  like  us ;  you  will  bind  yourself  to 
sleep  with  one  of  your  wives  every  Friday,  and  to 
give  two  and  a  half  per  cent,  of  your  income  an- 
nually to  the  poor.  We  drink  nothing  but  water 
and  sherbet ;  all  intoxicating  liquors  are  forbidden 
us.  In  Arabia  they  are  pernicious.  You  will  em- 
brace the  same  regimen,  although  you  should  be 
passionately  fond  of  wine;  and  even  although,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Phasis  and  Araxes,  it  should  often 
be  necessary  for  you.  In  short,  if  you  wish  to  go  to 
heaven,  and  to  obtain  good  places  there,  you  will 
take  the  road  through  Mecca." 

The  inhabitants  north  of  the  Caucasus  subject 
themselves  to  these  laws,  and  adopt,  in  the  fullest 
extent,  a  religion  which  was  never  framed  for  them. 

In  EgA'pt  the  emblematical  worship  of  animals 
succeeded  to  the  doctrines  of  Thaut.  The  gods  of 
the  Romans  afterwards  shared  Egypt  with  the  dogs, 
the  cats,  and  the  crocodiles.  To  the  Roman  religion 
succeeded  Christianity ;  that  was  completely  ban- 
ished by  Mahometanism,  which  will  perhaps  be 
superseded  by  some  new  religion. 

In  all  these  changes  climate  has  effected  nothing ; 

government    has    done    everything.     We   are   here 

considering  only  second  causes,  without  raising  our 

unhallowed  eyes  to  that  Providence  which  directs 

them.     The  Christian  religion,  which  received  its 

birth  in  Syria,  and  grew  up  towards  its  fulness  of 

stature  in  Alexandria,  inhabits  now  those  countries 
Vol.  7—14 


2IO  Philosophical 

where  Teutat  and  Irminsul,  Freya  and  Odin,  were 
formerly  adored. 

There  are  some  nations  whose  religion  is  not  the 
result  either  of  climate  or  of  government.  What 
cause  detached  the  north  of  Germany,  Denmark, 
three  parts  of  Switzerland,  Holland,  England,  Scot- 
land, and  Ireland,  from  the  Romish  communion? 
Povert}-.  Indulgences,  and  deliverance  from  purga- 
tory for  the  souls  of  those  whose  bodies  were  at  that 
time  in  possession  of  very  little  money,  were  sold 
too  dear.  The  prelates  and  monks  absorbed  the 
whole  revenue  of  a  province.  People  adopted  a 
cheaper  religion.  In  short,  after  numerous  civil 
wars,  it  was  concluded  that  the  pope's  religion  was 
a  good  one  for  nobles,  and  the  reformed  one  for 
citizens.  Time  will  show  whether  the  religion  of 
the  Greeks  or  of  the  Turks  will  prevail  on  the  coasts 
of  the  Euxine  and  ^gean  seas. 

COHERENCE— COHESION— ADHESION. 

The  power  by  which  the  parts  of  bodies  are  kept 
together.  It  is  a  phenomenon  the  most  common, 
but  the  least  understood.  Newton  derides  the 
hooked  atoms,  by  means  of  which  it  has  been  at- 
tempted to  explain  coherence ;  for  it  still  remained 
to  be  known  why  they  are  hooked,  and  why  they 
cohere.  He  treats  with  no  greater  respect  those 
who  have  explained  cohesion  by  rest.  "It  is,"  says 
he,  "an  occult  quality." 


Dictionary.  211 

He  has  recourse  to  an  attraction.  But  is  not 
this  attraction,  which  may  indeed  exist,  but  is  by 
no  means  capable  of  demonstration,  itself  an  occult 
quality?  The  grand  attraction  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  is  demonstrated  and  calculated.  That  of  ad- 
hering bodies  is  incalculable.  But  how  can  we  ad- 
mit a  force  that  is  immeasurable  to  be  of  the  same 
nature  as  one  that  can  be  measured  ? 

Nevertheless,  it  is  demonstrated  that  the  force  of 
attraction  acts  upon  all  the  planets  and  all  heavy 
bodies  in  proportion  to  their  solidity ;  but  it  acts 
on  all  the  particles  of  matter ;  it  is,  therefore,  very 
probable  that,  while  it  exists  in  every  part  in  refer- 
ence to  the  whole,  it  exists  also  in  every  part  in  ref- 
erence to  cohesion ;  coherence,  therefore,  may  be 
the  effect  of  attraction. 

This  opinion  appears  admissible  till  a  better  one 
can  be  founds  and  that  better  is  not  easily  to  be  met 
with. 

COMMERCE. 

Since  the  fall  of  Carthage,  no  people  had  been 
powerful  in  commerce  and  arms  at  the  same  time, 
until  Venice  set  the  example.  The  Portuguese 
having  passed  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  were,  for 
some  time,  great  lords  on  the  coast  of  India,  and 
even  formidable  in  Europe.  The  United  Provinces 
have  only  been  warriors  in  spite  of  themselves,  and 
it  was  not  as  united  between  themselves,  but  as 
united  with  England  that  they  assisted  to  hold  the 


212  Philosophical 

balance  of  Europe  at  the  commencement  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Carthage,  Venice,  and  Amsterdam  have  been 
powerful ;  but  they  have  acted  like  those  people 
among  us,  who,  having  amassed  money  by  trade, 
buy  lordly  estates.  Neither  Carthage,  Venice,  Hol- 
land, nor  any  people,  have  commenced  by  being  war- 
riors, and  even  conquerors,  to  finish  by  being  mer- 
chants. The  English  only  answer  this  descrip- 
tion; they  had  fought  a  long  time  before  they 
knew  how  to  reckon.  They  did  not  know,  when 
they  gained  the  battles  of  Agincourt,  Crecy,  and 
Poitiers,  that  they  were  able  to  deal  largely  In 
corn,  and  make  broadcloth,  which  would  be  of  much 
more  value  to  them  than  such  victories.  The 
knowledge  of  these  arts  alone  has  augmented,  en- 
riched, and  strengthened  the  nation.  It  is  only  be- 
cause the  English  have  become  merchants  that  Lon- 
don exceeds  Paris  in  extent  and  number  of  citizens ; 
that  they  can  spread  two  hundred  ships  of  war  over 
the  seas,  and  keep  royal  allies  in  pay. 

When  Louis  XIV.  made  Italy  tremble,  and  his 
armies,  already  masters  of  Savoy  and  Piedmont, 
were  ready  to  take  Turin,  Prince  Eugene  was 
obliged  to  march  to  the  skirts  of  Germany,  to  the 
succor  of  the  duke  of  Savoy.  Having  no  money, 
without  which  he  could  neither  take  nor  defend 
towns,  he  had  recourse  to  the  English  merchants. 
In  half  an  hour  they  advanced  him  the  sum  of  five 
millions  of  livres,  with  which  he  delivered  Turin, 


Dictionary.  213 

beat  the  French,  and  wrote  this  little  billet  to  those 
who  had  lent  it  him :  "Gentlemen,  I  have  received 
your  money,  and  I  flatter  myself  that  I  have  em- 
ployed it  to  your  satisfaction."  All  this  excites  just 
pride  in  an  English  merchant,  and  makes  him 
venture  to  compare  himself,  and  not  without  reason, 
to  a  Roman  citizen.  Thus  the  younger  sons  of  a 
peer  of  the  realm  disdain  not  to  be  merchants.  Lord 
Townsend,  minister  of  state,  had  a  brother  who  was 
contented  with  being  a  merchant  in  the  city.  At  the 
time  that  Lord  Orford  governed  England,  his 
younger  brother  was  a  factor  at  Aleppo,  whence  he 
would  not  return,  and  where  he  died.  This  custom — 
which,  however,  begins  to  decline — appeared  mon- 
strous to  the  petty  German  princes.  They  could 
not  conceive  how  the  son  of  a  peer  of  England  was 
only  a  rich  and  powerful  trader,  while  in  Germany 
they  are  all  princes.  We  have  seen  nearly  thirty 
highnesses  of  the  same  name,  having  nothing  for 
their  fortunes  but  old  armories  and  aristocratical 
hauteur.  In  France,  anybody  may  be  a  marquis 
that  likes ;  and  whoever  arrives  at  Paris  from  a 
remote  province,  with  money  to  spend,  and  a  name 
ending  in  ac  or  ille,  may  say :  "A  man  like  me !'' 
"A  man  of  my  quality !"  and  sovereignly  despise  a 
merchant ;  while  the  merchant  so  often  hears  his 
profession  spoken  of  with  disdain  that  he  is  weak 
enough  to  blush  at  it.  Which  is  the  more  useful  to 
a  state — a  well-powdered  lord,  who  knows  precisely 
at  what  hour  the  king  rises  and  retires,  and  who 


214  Philosophical 

gives  himself  airs  of  greatness,  while  playing  the 
part  of  a  slave  in  the  antechamber  of  a  minister ;  or 
a  merchant  who  enriches  his  country,  sends  orders 
from  his  office  to  Surat  and  Aleppo,  and  contributes 
to  the  happiness  of  the  world  ? 

COMMON  SENSE. 

There  is  sometimes  in  vulgar  expressions  an 
image  of  what  passes  in  the  heart  of  all  men. 
"SensHs  coniniunis"  signified  among  the  Romans 
not  only  common  sense,  but  also  humanity  and  sensi- 
bility. As  we  are  not  equal  to  the  Romans,  this 
word  with  us  conveys  not  half  what  it  did  with 
them.  It  signifies  only  good  sense — plain,  straight- 
forward reasoning — the  first  notion  of  ordinary 
things — a  medium  between  dulness  and  intellect. 
To  say,  "that  man  has  not  common  sense,"  is  a  gross 
insult ;  while  the  expression,  "that  man  has  common 
sense,"  is  an  affront  also ;  it  would  imply  that  he 
was  not  quite  stupid,  but  that  he  wanted  intellect. 
But  what  is  the  meaning  of  common  sense,  if  it  be 
not  sense?  Men,  when  they  invented  this  term, 
supposed  that  nothing  entered  the  mind  except 
by  the  senses ;  otherwise  would  they  have  used  the 
word  "sense"  to  signify  the  result  of  the  common 
faculty  of  reason? 

It  is  said,  sometimes,  that  common  sense  is  very 
rare.  What  does  this  expression  mean?  That,  in 
many  men,  dawning  reason  is  arrested  in  its  prog- 
ress by  some  prejudices ;    that  a  man  who  judges 


Dictionary.  215 

reasonably  on  one  affair  will  deceive  himself  grossly 
in  another.  The  Arab,  who,  besides  being  a  good 
calculator,  was  a  learned  chemist  and  an  exact  as- 
tronomer, nevertheless  believed  that  Mahomet  put 
half  of  the  moon  into  his  sleeve. 

How  is  it  that  he  was  so  much  above  common 
sense  in  the  three  sciences  above  mentioned,  and 
beneath  it  when  he  proceeded  to  the  subject  of  half 
the  moon?  It  is  because,  in  the  first  case,  he  had 
seen  with  his  own  eyes,  and  perfected  his  own  in- 
telligence ;  and,  in  the  second,  he  had  used  the  eyes 
of  others,  by  shutting  his  own,  and  perverting  the 
common  sense  within  him. 

How  could  this  strange  perversion  of  mind 
operate?  How  could  the  ideas  which  had  so  regu- 
lar and  firm  a  footing  in  his  brain,  on  many  sub- 
jects, halt  on  another  a  thousand  times  more  palpa- 
ble and  easy  to  comprehend  ?  This  man  had  always 
the  same  principles  of  intelligence  in  him ;  he  must 
have  therefore  possessed  a  vitiated  organ,  as  it  some- 
times happens  that  the  most  delicate  epicure  has  a 
depraved  taste  in  regard  to  a  particular  kind  of 
nourishment. 

How  did  the  organ  of  this  Arab,  who  saw  half 
of  the  moon  in  Mahomet's  sleeve,  become  dis- 
ordered ? — By  fear.  It  had  been  told  him  that  if  he 
did  not  believe  in  this  sleeve  his  soul,  immediately 
after  his  death,  in  passing  over  the  narrow  bridge, 
would  fall  forever  into  the  abyss.  He  w^as  told  much 
worse — if  ever  you  doubt  this  sleeve,  one  dervish 


2 1 6  Philosophical 

will  treat  you  with  ignominy  ;  another  will  prove  you 
mad,  because,  having  all  possible  motives  for  credi- 
bility, you  will  not  submit  your  superb  reason  to 
evidence ;  a  third  will  refer  you  to  the  Httle  divan  of 
a  small  province,  and  you  will  be  legally  impaled. 

All  this  produces  a  panic  in  the  good  Arab,  his 
wife,  sister,  and  all  his  little  family.  They  pos- 
sess good  sense  in  all  the  rest,  but  on  this  article 
their  imagination  is  diseased  like  that  of  Pascal, 
who  continually  saw  a  precipice  near  his  couch. 
But  did  our  Arab  really  believe  in  the  sleeve  of 
Mahomet  ?  No ;  he  endeavored  to  believe  it ;  he 
said,  "It  is  impossible,  but  true — I  believe  that  which 
I  do  not  credit."  He  formed  a  chaos  of  ideas  in  his 
head  in  regard  to  this  sleeve,  which  he  feared  to  dis- 
entangle, and  he  gave  up  his  common  sense. 

CONFESSION. 

Repentance  for  one's  faults  is  the  only  thing 
that  can  repair  the  loss  of  innocence ;  and  to  appear 
to  repent  of  them,  we  must  begin  by  acknowledging 
them.  Confession,  therefore,  is  almost  as  ancient  as 
civil  society.  Confession  was  practised  in  all  the 
mysteries  of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Samothrace.  We 
are  told,  in  the  life  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  that  when 
he  deigned  to  participate  in  the  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries, he  confessed  himself  to  the  hierophant, 
though  no  man  had  less  need  of  confession  than 
himself. 

This    might    be   a    very    salutary    ceremony;    it 


Dictionary.  217 

might  also  become  very  detrimental ;  for  such  is  the 
case  with  all  human  institutions.  We  know  the 
answer  of  the  Spartan  whom  a  hierophant  would 
have  persuaded  to  confess  himself:  "To  whom 
should  I  acknowledge  my  faults?  to  God,  or  to 
thee?"  "To  God/'  said  the  priest.  "Retire,  then, 
"0  man." 

It  is  hard  to  determine  at  what  time  this  practice 
was  established  among  the  Jews,  who  borrowed  a 
great  many  of  their  rites  from  their  neighbors.  The 
Mishna,  which  is  the  collection  of  the  Jewish  laws, 
says  that  often,  in  confessing,  they  placed  their  hand 
upon  a  calf  belonging  to  the  priest ;  and  this  was 
called  "the  confession  of  calves." 

It  is  said,  in  the  same  Mishna,  that  every  culprit 
under  sentence  of  death,  went  and  confessed  himself 
before  witnesses,  in  some  retired  spot,  a  short  time 
before  his  execution.  If  he  felt  himself  guilty  he 
said,  "May  my  death  atone  for  all  my  sins !"  If  in- 
nocent, he  said,  "May  my  death  atone  for  all  my 
sins,  excepting  that  of  which  I  am  now  accused." 

On  the  day  of  the  feast  which  was  called  by  the 
Jews  the  solemn  atonement,  the  devout  among  them 
confessed  to  one  another,  specifying  their  sins.  The 
confessor  repeated  three  times  thirteen  words  of  the 
seventy-seventh  Psalm,  at  the  same  time  giving  the 
confessed  thirty-nine  stripes,  which  the  latter  re- 
turned, and  they  went  away  quits.  It  is  said  that 
this  ceremony  is  still  in  use. 

St.  John's  reputation  for  sanctity  brought  croAvds 


21 8  Philosophical 

to  confess  to  him,  as  they  came  to  be  baptized  by 
him  with  the  baptism  of  justice ;  but  we  are  not 
informed  that  St.  John  gave  his  penitents  thirty- 
nine  stripes.  Confession  was  not  then  a  sacrament ; 
for  this  there  are  several  reasons.  The  first  is.  that 
the  word  ''sacrament"  was  at  that  time  unknown, 
which  reason  is  of  itself  sufficient.  The  Christians 
took  their  confession  from  the  Jewish  rites,  and  not 
from  the  mysteries  of  Isis  and  Ceres.  The  Jews 
confessed  to  their  associates,  and  the  Christians  did 
also.  It  afterwards  appeared  more  convenient  that 
this  should  be  the  privilege  of  the  priests.  No  rite, 
no  ceremony,  can  be  established  but  in  process  of 
time.  It  was  hardly  possible  that  some  trace  should 
not  remain  of  the  ancient  usage  of  the  laity  of  con- 
fessing to  one  another. 

In  Constantine's  reign,  it  was  at  first  the  practice 
publicly  to  confess  public  offences.  In  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, after  the  schism  of  Novatus  and  Novatian, 
penitentiaries  were  instituted  for  the  absolution  of 
such  as  had  fallen  into  idolatry.  This  confession  to 
penitentiary  priests  was  abolished  under  the  Em- 
peror Theodosius.  A  woman  having  accused  herself 
aloud,  to  the  penitentiary  of  Constantinople,  of 
lying  with  the  deacon,  caused  so  much  scandal  and 
disturbance  throughout  the  city  that  Nectarius  per- 
mitted all  the  faithful  to  approach  the  holy  table 
without  confession,  and  to  communicate  in  obedi- 
ence to  their  consciences  alone.  Hence  these  words 
of  St.  John  Chrysostom,  who  succeeded  Nectarius : 


Dictionary.  1 1 9 

''Confess  yourselves  continually  to  God ;  I  do  not 
bring  you  forward  on  a  stage  to  discover  your  faults 
to  your  fellow-servants ;  show  your  wounds  to  God, 
and  ask  of  Him  their  cure ;  acknowledge  your  sins 
to  Him  who  will  not  reproach  you  before  men ;  it 
were  vain  to  strive  to  hide  them  from  Him  who 
knows  all  things,"  etc. 

It  is  said  that  the  practice  of  auricular  confession 
did  not  begin  in  the  west  until  about  the  seventh 
century,  when  it  was  instituted  by  the  abbots,  who 
required  their  monks  to  come  and  acknowledge  their 
offences  to  them  twice  a  year.  These  abbots  it  was 
who  invented  the  formula:  "I  absolve  thee  to  the 
utmost  of  my  power  and  thy  need."  It  would  surely 
have  been  more  respectful  towards  the  Supreme 
Being,  as  well  as  more  just,  to  say:  "May  He  for- 
give both  thy  faults  and  mine  !" 

The  good  which  confession  has  done  is  that  it 
has  sometimes  procured  restitution  from  petty 
thieves.  The  ill  is,  that,  in  the  internal  troubles  of 
states,  it  has  sometimes  forced  the  penitents  to  be 
conscientiously  rebellious  and  blood-thirsty.  The 
Guelph  priests  refused  absolution  to  the  Ghibellines, 
and  the  Ghibellines  to  the  Guelphs. 

The  counsellor  of  state,  Lenet,  relates,  in  his 
"Memoirs,"  that  all  he  could  do  in  Burgundy  to 
make  the  people  rise  in  favor  of  the  Prince  Conde, 
detained  at  Vincennes  by  Cardinal  Mazarin,  was 
"to  let  loose  the  priests  in  the  confessionals" — 
speaking  of  them  as  bloodhounds,  who  were  to  fan 


220  Philosophical 

the  flame  of  civil  war  in  the  privacy  of  the  confes- 
sional. 

At  the  siege  of  Barcelona,  the  monks  refused  ab- 
solution to  all  who  remained  faithful  to  Philip  V. 
In  the  last  revolution  of  Genoa,  it  was  intimated  to 
all  consciences  that  there  was  no  salvation  for  who- 
soever should  not  take  up  arms  against  the  Aus- 
trians.  This  salutary  remedy  has,  in  every  age, 
been  converted  into  a  poison.  Whether  a  Sforza,  a 
Medici,  a  Prince  of  Orange,  or  a  King  of  France 
was  to  be  assassinated,  the  parricide  always  pre- 
pared himself  by  the  sacrament  of  confession.  Louis 
XL,  and  the  Marchioness  de  Brinvilliers  always 
confessed  as  soon  as  they  had  committed  any  great 
crime ;  and  they  confessed  often,  as  gluttons  take 
medicines  to  increase  their  appetite. 

The  Disclosure  of  Confessions. 

Jaurigini  and  Balthazar  Gerard,  the  assassins  of 
William  L,  Prince  of  Orange,  the  dominican  Jacques 
Clement,  Jean  Chatel,  the  Feuillant  Ravaillac,  and 
all  the  other  parricides  of  that  day,  confessed  them- 
selves before  committing  their  crimes.  Fanaticism, 
in  those  deplorable  ages,  had  arrived  at  such  a  pitch 
that  confession  was  but  an  additional  pledge  for 
the  consummation  of  villainy.  It  became  sacred  for 
this  reason — that  confession  is  a  sacrament. 

Strada  himself  says :  "Jourigni  non  ante  facinus 
aggredi  sustinuit,  qtiam  expiatam  noxis  anirnam 
aptid  Dominicanum  sacerdotem  ccrlesti  pane  Hrma- 


Dictionary.  221 

verit."  "Jaurigini  did  not  venture  upon  this  act  until 
he  had  purged  his  soul  by  confession  at  the  feet  of 
a  Dominican,  and  fortified  it  by  the  celestial  bread." 
We  find,  in  the  interrogatory  of  Ravaillac,  that 
the  wretched  man,  quitting  the  Feuillans,  and  wish- 
ing to  be  received  among  the  Jesuits,  applied  to  the 
Jesuit  d'Aubigny  and,  after  speaking  of  several  ap- 
paritions that  he  had  seen,  showed  him  a  knife,  on 
the  blade  of  which  was  engraved  a  heart  and  a  cross, 
and  said,  "This  heart  indicates  that  the  king's  heart 
must  be  brought  to  make  war  on  the  Huguenots." 

Perhaps,  if  this  d'Aubigny  had  been  zealous  and 
prudent  enough  to  have  informed  the  king  of  these 
words,  and  given  him  a  faithful  picture  of  the  man 
who  had  uttered  them,  the  best  of  kings  would  not 
have  been  assassinated. 

On  August  20,  1610,  three  months  after  the  death 
of  Henry  IV.,  whose  wounds  yet  bleed  in  the  heart 
of  every  Frenchman,  the  Advocate-General  Sirvin, 
still  of  illustrious  memory,  required  that  the  Jesuits 
should  be  made  to  sign  the  four  following  rules : 

I.  That  the  council  is  above  the  pope.  2.  That 
the  pope  cannot  deprive  the  king  of  any  of  his  rights 
by  excommunication.  3.  That  ecclesiastics,  like 
other  persons,  are  entirely  subject  to  the  king.  4. 
That  a  priest  who  is  made  acquainted,  by  confession, 
with  a  conspiracy  against  the  king  and  the  state, 
must  disclose  it  to  the  magistrates. 

On  the  22nd,  the  parliament  passed  a  decree,  by 
which  it  forbade  the  Jesuits  to  instruct  youth  before 


222  Philosophical 

they  had  signed  these  four  articles ;  but  the  court  of 
Rome  was  then  so  powerful,  and  that  of  France  so 
feeble,  that  this  decree  was  of  no  effect.  A  fact 
worthy  of  attention  is,  that  this  same  court  of  Rome, 
which  did  not  choose  that  confession  should  be  dis- 
closed when  the  lives  of  sovereigns  were  endan- 
gered, obliged  its  confessors  to  denounce  to  the  in- 
quisitors those  whom  their  female  penitents  accused 
in  confession  of  having  seduced  and  abused  them. 
Paul  IV.,  Pius  IV.,  Clement  VIII.,  and  Gregory 
XV.,  ordered  these  disclosures  to  be  made. 

This  was  a  very  embarrassing  snare  for  con- 
fessors and  female  penitents ;  it  was  making  the 
sacrament  a  register  of  informations,  and  even  of 
sacrileges.  For,  by  the  ancient  canons,  and  es- 
pecially by  the  Lateran  Council  under  Innocent  III., 
every  priest  that  disclosed  a  confession,  of  whatever 
nature,  was  to  be  interdicted  and  condemned  to  per- 
petual imprisonment. 

But  this  is  not  the  worst ;  here  are  four  popes,  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  ordering  the 
disclosure  of  a  sin  of  impurity,  but  not  permitting 
that  of  a  parricide.  A  woman,  in  the  sacrament,  de- 
clares, or  pretends,  before  a  carmelite.  that  a  cor- 
delier has  seduced  her ;  and  the  carmelite  must  de- 
nounce the  cordelier.  A  fanatical  assassin,  thinking 
that  he  serves  God  by  killing  his  prince,  comes  and 
consults  a  confessor  on  this  case  of  conscience ;  and 
the  confessor  commits  a  sacrilege  if  he  saves  his 
sovereign's  life. 


Dictionary.  223 

This  absurd  and  horrible  contradiction  is  one  un- 
fortunate consequence  of  the  constant  opposition 
existing  for  so  many  centuries  between  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  laws.  The  citizen  finds  himself,  on 
fifty  occasions,  placed  without  alternative  between 
sacrilege  and  high  treason;  the  rules  of  good  and 
evil  being  not  yet  drawn  from  beneath  the  chaos 
under  which  they  have  so  long  been  buried.  The 
Jesuit  Coton's  reply  to  Henry  IV.  will  endure  longer 
than  his  order.  Would  you  reveal  the  confession  of 
a  man  who  had  resolved  to  assassinate  me?"  "No; 
but  I  would  throw  myself  between  him  and  you." 

Father  Coton's  maxim  has  not  always  been  fol- 
lowed. In  some  countries  there  are  state  mysteries 
unknown  to  the  public,  of  which  revealed  confes- 
sions form  no  inconsiderable  part.  By  means  of 
suborned  confessors  the  secrets  of  prisoners  are 
learned.  Some  confessors,  to  reconcile  their  con- 
science with  their  interest,  make  use  of  a  singular 
artifice.  They  give  an  account,  not  precisely  of  what 
the  prisoner  has  told  them,  but  of  what  he  has  not 
told  them.  If,  for  example,  they  are  employed  to 
find  out  whether  an  accused  person  has  for  his  ac- 
complice a  Frenchman  or  an  Italian,  they  say  to  the 
man  who  employs  them,  "the  prisoner  has  sworn  to 
me  that  no  Italian  was  informed  of  his  designs ;" 
whence  it  is  concluded  that  the  suspected  French- 
man is  guilty. 

Bodin  thus  expresses  himself,  in  his  book,  "De 
la  Repuhlique" :  "Nor  must  it  be  concealed,  if  the 


224  Philosophical 

culprit  is  discovered  to  have  conspired  against  the 
life  of  the  sovereign,  or  even  to  have  willed  it  only; 
as  in  the  case  of  a  gentleman  of  Normandy,  who 
confessed  to  a  monk  that  he  had  a  mind  to  kill 
Francis  I.  The  monk  apprised  the  king,  who  sent 
the  gentleman  to  the  court  of  parliament,  where  he 
was  condemned  to  death,  as  I  learned  from  M. 
Canage,  an  advocate  in  parliament." 

The  writer  of  this  article  was  himself  almost  wit- 
ness to  a  disclosure  still  more  important  and  singu- 
lar. It  is  known  how  the  Jesuit  Daubenton  betrayed 
Philip  v.,  king  of  Spain,  to  whom  he  was  confessor. 
He  thought,  from  a  very  mistaken  policy,  that  he 
should  report  the  secrets  of  his  penitent  to  the  duke 
of  Orleans,  regent  of  the  kingdom,  and  had  the 
imprudence  to  write  to  him  what  he  should  not, 
even  verbally,  communicate  to  any  one.  The  duke 
of  Orleans  sent  his  letter  to  the  king  of  Spain.  The 
Jesuit  was  discarded,  and  died  a  short  time  after. 
This  is  an  authenticated  fact. 

It  is  still  a  grave  and  perplexing  question,  in 
what  cases  confessions  should  be  disclosed.  For, 
if  we  decide  that  it  should  be  in  cases  of  human 
high  treason,  this  treason  may  be  made  to  include 
any  direct  offence  against  majesty,  even  the  smug- 
gling of  salt  or  muslins.  Much  more  should  high 
treasons  against  the  Divine  Majesty  be  disclosed; 
and  these  may  be  extended  to  the  smallest  faults,  as 
having  missed  evening  service. 

It  would,  then,  be  very  important  to  come  to 


Dictionary.  225 

a  perfect  understanding  about  what  confessions 
should  be  disclosed,  and  what  should  be  kept  secret. 
Yet  would  such  a  decision  be  very  dangerous ;  for 
how  many  things  are  there  which  must  not  be  in- 
vestigated ! 

Pontas,  who,  in  three  folio  volumes,  decides  on 
all  the  possible  cases  of  conscience  in  France,  and 
is  unknown  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  says  that  on 
no  occasion  should  confession  be  disclosed.  The  par- 
liaments have  decided  the  contrary.  Which  are 
we  to  believe?  Pontas,  or  the  guardians  of  the 
laws  of  the  realm,  who  watch  over  the  lives  of 
princes  and  the  safety  of  the  state  ? 

Whether  Laymen  and   Women  Have  Been  Con- 
fessors? 

As,  in  the  old  law,  the  laity  confessed  to  one 
another ;  so,  in  the  new  law,  they  long  had  the  same 
privilege  by  custom.  In  proof  of  this,  let  it  suffice  to 
cite  the  celebrated  Joinville,  who  expressly  says  that 
"the  constable  of  Cyprus  confessed  himself  to  him, 
and  he  gave  him  absolution,  according  to  the  right 
which  he  had  so  to  do."  St.  Thomas,  in  his  dream, 
expresses  himself  thus:  "Confessio  ex  defcctu  sa- 
cerdotis  laico  facta,  saeramentalis  est  quodam 
modo."  "Confession  made  to  a  layman,  in  default 
of  a  priest,  is  in  some  sort  sacramental." 

We  find  in  the  life  of  St.  Burgundosarius,  and  in 
the  rule  of  an  unknown  saint,  that  the  nuns  con- 
fessed their  very  grossest  sins  to  their  abbess.  The 
Vol.  7 — 15 


ii6  Philosophical 

rule  of  St.  Donatus  ordains  that  the  nuns  shall  dis- 
cover their  faults  to  their  superior  three  times  a  day. 
The  capitulars  of  our  kings  say  that  abbesses  must 
be  forbidden  the  exercise  of  the  rig-ht  which  they 
have  arrogated  against  the  custom  of  the  holy 
church,  of  giving  benediction  and  imposing  hands, 
which  seems  to  signify  the  pronouncing  of  absolu- 
tion, and  supposes  the  confession  of  sins.  Marcus, 
patriarch  of  Alexandria,  asks  Balzamon,  a  cele- 
brated canonist  of  his  time,  whether  permission 
should  be  granted  to  abbesses  to  hear  confessions, 
to  which  Balzamon  answers  in  the  negative.  We 
have,  in  the  canon  law,  a  decree  of  Pope  Innocent 
III.,  enjoining  the  bishops  of  Valencia  and  Burgos, 
in  Spain,  to  prevent  certain  abbesses  from  blessing 
their  nuns,  from  confessing,  and  from  public  preach- 
ing: "Although,"  says  he,  "the  blessed  Virgin 
Mary  was  superior  to  all  the  apostles  in  dignity 
and  in  merit,  yet  it  is  not  to  her,  but  to  the  apostles, 
that  the  Lord  has  confided  the  keys  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven." 

So  ancient  was  this  right,  that  we  find  it  estab- 
lished in  the  rules  of  St.  Basil.  He  permits  abbesses 
to  confess  their  nuns,  conjointly  with  a  priest. 
Father  Martene,  in  his  "Rights  of  the  Church," 
says  that,  for  a  long  time,  abbesses  confessed  their 
nuns ;  but,  adds  he,  they  were  so  curious,  that  it 
was  found  necessary  to  deprive  them  of  this 
privilege. 

The  ex-Iesuit  Nonnotte  should  confess  himself 


Dictionary.  227 

and  do  penance ;  not  for  having  been  one  of  the 
most  ignorant  of  daubers  on  paper,  for  that  is  no 
crime ;  not  for  having  given  the  name  of  errors  to 
truths  which  he  did  not  understand ;  but  for  having, 
with  the  most  insolent  stupidity,  calumniated  the 
author  of  this  article,  and  called  his  brother  raca 
(a  fool),  while  he  denied  these  facts  and  many 
others,  about  which  he  knew  not  one  word.  He  has 
put  himself  in  danger  of  hell  fire ;  let  us  hope  that 
he  will  ask  pardon  of  God  for  his  enormous  folly. 
We  desire  not  the  death  of  a  sinner,  but  that  he 
turn  from  his  wickedness  and  live. 

It  has  long  been  debated  why  men,  very  famous 
in  this  part  of  the  world  where  confession  is  in  use, 
have  died  without  this  sacrament.  Such  are  Leo 
X.,  Pelisson,  and  Cardinal  Dubois.  The  cardinal 
had  his  perineum  opened  by  La  Peyronie's  bistoury ; 
but  he  might  have  confessed  and  communicated  be- 
fore the  operation.  Pelisson,  who  was  a  Protestant 
until  he  was  forty  years  old,  became  a  convert  that 
he  might  be  made  master  of  requests  and  have 
benefices.  As  for  Pope  Leo  X.,  when  surprised  by 
death,  he  was  so  much  occupied  with  temporal  con- 
cerns, that  he  had  no  time  to  think  of  spiritual  ones. 

Confession  Tickets. 

In  Protestant  countries  confession  is  made  to 
God ;  in  Catholic  ones,  to  man.  The  Protestants  say 
you  can  hide  nothing  from  God,  whereas  man  knows 
only   what  you  choose  to  tell  him.     As  we  shall 


228  Philosophical 

never  meddle  with  controversy,  we  shall  not  enter 
here  into  this  old  dispute.  Our  literary  society  is 
composed  of  Catholics  and  Protestants,  united  by 
the  love  of  letters ;  we  must  not  suffer  ecclesiastical 
quarrels  to  sow  dissension  among  us.  We  will  con- 
tent ourselves  with  once  more  repeating  the  fine 
answer  of  the  Greek  already  mentioned,  to  the  priest 
who  would  have  had  him  confess  in  the  mysteries 
of  Ceres :  "Is  it  to  God,  or  to  thee,  that  I  am  to  ad- 
dress myself  ?"    "To  God."    "Depart  then,  O  man." 

In  Italy,  and  in  all  the  countries  of  obedience, 
every  one,  without  distinction,  must  confess  and 
communicate.  If  you  have  a  stock  of  enormous 
sins  on  hand,  you  have  also  grand  penitentiaries  to 
absolve  you.  If  your  confession  is  worth  nothing, 
so  much  the  worse  for  you.  At  a  very  reasonable 
rate,  you  get  a  printed  receipt,  which  admits  you  to 
communion ;  and  all  the  receipts  are  thrown  into  a 
pix  ;  such  is  the  rule. 

These  bearers'  tickets  were  unknown  at  Paris 
until  about  the  year  1750,  when  an  archbishop  of 
Paris  bethought  himself  of  introducing  a  sort  of 
spiritual  bank,  to  extirpate  Jansenism  and  insure  the 
triumph  of  the  bull  Unigenitus.  It  was  his  pleasure 
that  extreme  unction  and  the  viaticum  should  be 
refused  to  every  sick  person  who  did  not  produce  a 
ticket  of  confession,  signed  by  a  constitutionary 
priest. 

This  was  refusing  the  sacrament  to  nine-tenths 
of  Paris.     In  vain  was  he  told :    "Think  what  you 


Dictionary.  229 

are  doing;  either  these  sacraments  are  necessary,  to 
escape  damnation,  or  salvation  may  be  obtained 
without  them  by  faith,  hope,  charity,  good  works, 
and  the  merits  of  our  Saviour.  If  salvation  be  at- 
tainable without  this  viaticum,  your  tickets  are  use- 
less ;  if  the  sacraments  be  absolutely  necessary,  you 
damn  all  whom  you  deprive  of  them ;  you  consign 
to  eternal  fire  seven  hundred  thousand  souls,  suppos- 
ing you  live  long  enough  to  bury  them ;  this  is  vio- 
lent ;  calm  yourself,  and  let  each  one  die  as  well  as 
he  can." 

In  this  dilemma  he  gave  no  answer,  but  persisted. 
It  is  horrible  to  convert  religion,  which  should  be 
man's  consolation,  into  his  torment.  The  parlia- 
ment, in  whose  hands  is  the  high  police,  finding  that 
society  was  disturbed,  opposed — according  to  cus- 
tom— decrees  to  mandaments.  But  ecclesiastical 
discipline  would  not  yield  to  legal  authority.  The 
magistracy  was  under  the  necessity  of  using  force, 
and  to  send  archers  to  obtain  for  the  Parisians  con- 
fession, communion,  and  interment. 

By  this  excess  of  absurdity,  men's  minds  were 
soured  and  cabals  were  formed  at  court,  as  if  there 
had  been  a  farmer-general  to  be  appointed,  or  a 
minister  to  be  disgraced.  In  the  discussion  of  a 
question  there  are  always  incidents  mixed  up  that 
have  no  radical  connection  with  it ;  and  in  this  case 
so  much  so,  that  all  the  members  of  the  parliament 
were  exiled,  as  was  also  the  archbishop  in  his  turn. 

These  confession  tickets  would,  in  the  times  pre- 


230  Philosophical 

ceding,  have  caused  a  civil  war,  but  happily,  in  our 
days,  they  produced  only  civil  cavils.  The  spirit  of 
philosophy,  which  is  no  other  than  reason,  has  be- 
come, with  all  honest  men,  the  only  antidote  against 
these  epidemic  disorders. 

CONFISCATION. 

It  is  well  observed,  in  the  "Dictionnaire  Encyclo- 
pediquc,"  in  the  article  "Confiscation,"  that  the  fisc, 
whether  public,  or  royal,  or  seignorial,  or  imperial, 
or  disloyal,  was  a  small  basket  of  reeds  or  osiers,  in 
which  was  put  the  little  money  that  was  received  or 
could  be  extorted.  We  now  use  bags  ;  the  royal  fisc 
is  the  royal  bag. 

In  several  countries  of  Europe  it  is  a  received 
maxim,  that  whosoever  confiscates  the  body,  con- 
fiscates the  goods  also.  This  usage  is  established 
in  those  countries  in  particular  where  custom  holds 
the  place  of  law ;  and  in  all  cases,  an  entire  family 
is  punished  for  the  fault  of  one  man  only. 

To  confiscate  the  body,  is  not  to  put  a  man's  body 
into  his  sovereign  lord's  basket.  This  phrase,  in  the 
barbarous  language  of  the  bar,  means  to  get  posses- 
sion of  the  body  of  a  citizen,  in  order  either  to  take 
away  his  life,  or  to  condemn  him  to  banishment  for 
life.  If  he  is  put  to  death,  or  escapes  death  by 
flight,  his  goods  are  seized.  Thus  it  is  not  enough 
to  put  a  man  to  death  for  his  offences ;  his  children, 
too,  must  be  deprived  of  the  means  of  living. 


Dictionary.  23 1 

In  more  countries  than  one,  the  rigor  of  custom 
confiscates  the  property  of  a  man  who  has  voluntar- 
ily released  himself  from  the  miseries  of  this  life, 
and  his  children  are  reduced  to  beggary  because 
their  father  is  dead.  In  some  Roman  Catholic  prov- 
inces, the  head  of  a  family  is  condemned  to  the 
galleys  for  life,  by  an  arbitrary  sentence,  for  having 
harbored  a  preacher  in  his  house,  or  for  having 
heard  one  of  his  sermons  in  some  cavern  or  desert 
place,  and  his  wife  and  family  are  forced  to  beg 
their  bread. 

This  jurisprudence,  which  consists  in  depriving 
orphans  of  their  food,  was  unknown  to  the  Roman 
commonwealth.  Sulla  introduced  it  in  his  proscrip- 
tions, and  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  a  rapine 
invented  by  Sulla  was  not  an  example  to  be  fol- 
lowed. Nor  was  this  law,  which  seems  to  have  been 
dictated  by  inhumanity  and  avarice  alone,  followed 
either  by  Caesar,  or  by  the  good  Emperor  Trajan, 
or  by  the  Antonines,  whose  names  are  still  pro- 
nounced in  every  nation  with  love  and  reverence. 
Even  under  Justinian,  confiscations  took  place  only 
in  cases  of  high  treason.  Those  who  were  accused 
having  been,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  great  pos- 
sessions, it  seems  that  Justinian  made  this  ordi- 
nance through  avarice  alone.  It  also  appears  that, 
in  the  times  of  feudal  anarchy,  the  princes  and  lords 
of  lands,  being  not  very  rich,  sought  to  increase 
their  treasure  by  the  condemnation  of  their  subjects. 
They  were  allowed  to  draw  a  revenue  from  crime. 


232  Philosophical 

Their  laws  being  arbitrary,  and  the  Roman  juris- 
prudence unknown  among  them,  their  customs, 
whether  whimsical  or  cruel,  prevailed.  But  now 
that  the  power  of  sovereigns  is  founded  on  imm.ense 
and  assured  wealth,  their  treasure  needs  no  longer 
to  be  swollen  by  the  slender  wreck  of  the  fortunes 
of  some  unhappy  family.  It  is  true  that  the  goods 
so  appropriated  are  abandoned  to  the  first  who  asks 
for  them.  But  is  it  for  one  citizen  to  fatten  on  the 
remains  of  the  blood  of  another  citizen  ? 

Confiscation  is  not  admitted  in  countries  where 
the  Roman  law  is  established,  except  within  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  parliament  of  Toulouse.  It  was 
formerly  established  at  Calais,  where  it  was  abol- 
ished by  the  English  when  they  were  masters  of  that 
place.  It  appears  very  strange  that  the  inhabitants 
of  the  capital  live  under  a  more  rigorous  law  than 
those  of  the  smaller  towns;  so  true  is  it,  that  juris- 
prudence has  often  been  established  by  chance,  with- 
out regularity,  without  uniformity,  as  the  huts  are 
built  in  a  village. 

The  following  was  spoken  by  Advocate-General 
Omer  Talon,  in  full  parliament,  at  the  most  glorious 
period  in  the  annals  ol  France,  in  1673,  concerning 
the  property  of  one  Mademoiselle  de  Canillac,  which 
had  been  confiscated.  Reader,  attend  to  this  speech  ; 
it  is  not  in  the  style  of  Cicero's  oratory,  but  it  is 
curious : 

"In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  God 
says,  Tf  thou  shalt  find  a  city  where  idolatry  pre- 


Dictionary.  2^2 

vails,  thou  shalt  surely  smite  the  inhabitants  of  that 
city  with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  destroying-  it  utterly, 
and  all  that  is  therein.  And  thou  shalt  gather  all 
the  spoil  of  it  into  the  midst  of  the  street  thereof, 
and  shalt  burn  with  fire  the  city  and  all  the  spoil 
thereof,  every  whit,  for  the  Lord  thy  God.' 

"So,  in  the  crime  of  high  treason,  the  king  seized 
the  property,  and  the  children  were  deprived  of  it. 
Naboth  having  been  proceeded  against,  'quia  malc- 
dixcrat.  regi'  King  Ahab  took  possession  of  his 
inheritance.  David,  being  apprised  that  Mephibo- 
sheth  had  taken  part  in  the  rebellion,  gave  all  his 
goods  to  Sheba,  who  brought  him  the  news — 'Tibi 
sunt  omnia  quce  fuenint  Mephihosheth.' " 

The  question  here  was,  who  should  inherit  the 
property  of  Mademoiselle  de  Canillac — property  for- 
merly confiscated  from  her  father,  abandoned  by  the 
king  to  a  keeper  of  the  royal  treasure,  and  after- 
wards given  by  this  keeper  of  the  royal  treasure  to 
the  testatrix.  And  in  this  case  of  a  woman  of  Au- 
vergne  a  lawyer  refers  us  to  that  of  Ahab,  one  of  the 
petty  kings  of  a  part  of  Palestine,  who  confiscated 
Naboth's  vineyard,  after  assassinating  its  pro- 
prietor with  the  poniard  of  Jewish  justice — an  abom- 
inable act,  which  has  become  a  proverb  to  inspire 
men  with  a  horror  for  usurpation.  Assuredly, 
Naboth's  vineyard  has  no  connection  with  Made- 
moiselle de  Canillac's  inheritance.  Nor  do  the  mur- 
der and  confiscation  of  the  goods  of  Mephihosheth, 
grandson  of  King  Saul,  and  son  of  David's  friend 


234  Philosophical 

Jonathan,  bear  a  much  greater  afifinity  to  this  lady's 
will. 

With  this  pedantry,  this  rage  for  citations  for- 
eign to  the  subject ;  with  this  ignorance  of  the  first 
principles  of  human  nature  ;  with  these  ill-conceived 
and  ill-adapted  prejudices,  has  jurisprudence  been 
treated  on  by  men  who,  in  their  sphere,  have  had 
some  reputation. 

CONSCIENCE. 

SECTION     I. 

Of  the  Conscience  of  Good  and  of  Evil. 

Locke  has  demonstrated — if  we  may  use  that 
term  in  morals  and  metaphysics — that  we  have  no 
innate  ideas  or  principles.  He  was  obliged  to  dem- 
onstrate this  position  at  great  length,  as  the  con- 
trary was  at  that  time  universally  believed.  It 
hence  clearly  follows  that  it  is  necessary  to  instil 
just  ideas  and  good  principles  into  the  mind  as  soon 
as  it  acquires  the  use  of  its  faculties. 

Locke  adduces  the  example  of  savages,  who  kill 
and  devour  their  neighbors  without  any  remorse  of 
conscience ;  and  of  Christian  soldiers,  decently  edu- 
cated, who,  on  the  taking  of  a  city  by  assault, 
plunder,  slay,  and  violate,  not  merely  without  re- 
morse, but  with  rapture,  honor,  and  glory,  and  with 
the  applause  of  all  their  comrades. 

It  is  perfectly  certain  that,  in  the  massacres  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  and  in  the  "autos-da-fc,"  the  holy  acts 


Dictionary.  235 

of  faith  of  the  Inquisition,  no  murderer's  conscience 
ever  upbraided  him  with  having  massacred  men, 
women,  and  children,  or  with  the  shrieks,  faintings, 
and  dying  tortures  of  his  miserable  victims,  whose 
only  crime  consisted  in  keeping  Easter  in  a  man- 
ner different  from  that  of  the  inquisitors.  It  results, 
therefore,  from  what  has  been  stated,  that  we  have 
no  other  conscience  than  what  is  created  in  us  by 
the  spirit  of  the  age,  by  example,  and  by  our  own 
dispositions  and  reflections. 

Man  is  born  without  principles,  but  with  the  fac- 
ulty of  receiving  them.  His  natural  disposition  will 
incline  him  either  to  cruelty  or  kindness ;  his  under- 
standing will  in  time  inform  him  that  the  square  of 
twelve  is  a  hundred  and  forty-four,  and  that  he 
ought  not  to  do  to  others  what  he  would  not  that 
others  should  do  to  him ;  but  he  will  not,  of  him- 
self, acquire  these  truths  in  early  childhood.  He 
will  not  understand  the  first,  and  he  will  not  feel  the 
second. 

A  young  savage  who,  when  hungry,  has  received 
from  his  father  a  piece  of  another  savage  to  eat, 
will,  on  the  morrows  ask  for  the  like  meal,  without 
thinking  about  any  obligation  not  to  treat  a  neighbor 
otherwise  than  he  would  be  treated  himself.  He 
acts,  mechanically  and  irresistibly,  directly  contrary 
to  the  eternal  principle. 

Nature  has  made  a  provision  against  such  hor- 
rors. She  has  given  to  man  a  disposition  to  pity, 
and  the  power  of  comprehending  truth.    These  two 


236  Philosophical 

gifts  of  God  constitute  the  foundation  of  civil  so- 
ciety. This  is  the  reason  there  have  ever  been  but 
few  cannibals ;  and  which  renders  life,  among  civ- 
ilized nations,  a  little  tolerable.  Fathers  and  moth- 
ers bestow  on  their  children  an  education  which 
soon  renders  them  social,  and  this  education  confers 
on  them  a  conscience. 

Pure  religion  and  morality,  early  inculcated,  so 
strongly  impress  the  human  heart  that,  from  the  age 
of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  a  single  bad  action  will 
not  be  performed  without  the  upbraidings  of  con- 
science. Then  rush  on  those  headlong  passions 
which  war  against  conscience,  and  sometimes  de- 
stroy it.  During  the  conflict,  men,  hurried  on  by 
the  tempest  of  their  feelings,  on  various  occasions 
consult  the  advice  of  others  ;  as,  in  physical  diseases, 
they  ask  it  of  those  who  appear  to  enjoy  good  health. 

This  it  is  which  has  produced  casuists ;  that  is, 
persons  who  decide  on  cases  of  conscience.  One 
of  the  wisest  casuists  was  Cicero.  In  his  book  of 
"Offices,"  or  "Duties"  of  man,  he  investigates  points 
of  the  greatest  nicety;  but  long  before  him  Zoro- 
aster had  appeared  in  the  world  to  guide  the  con- 
science by  the  most  beautiful  precept,  "If  you  doubt 
whether  an  action  be  good  or  bad,  abstain  from 
doing  it."    We  treat  of  this  elsewhere. 

Whether  a  Judge  Should  Decide  according  to  his 
Conscience,  or  according  to  the  Evidence. 

Thomas  Aquinas,  you  are  a  great  saint,  and  a 


Dictionary.  237 

great  divine,  and  no  Dominican  has  a  greater  ven- 
eration for  you  than  I  have ;  but  you  have  decided, 
in  your  "Summary,"  that  a  judge  ought  to  give 
sentence  according  to  the  evidence  produced  against 
the  person  accused,  although  he  knows  that  person 
to  be  perfectly  innocent.  You  maintain  that  the  dep- 
osition of  witnesses,  which  must  inevitably  be  false, 
and  the  pretended  proofs  resulting  from  the  process, 
which  are  impertinent,  ought  to  weigh  down  the 
testimony  of  his  own  senses.  He  saw  the  crime 
committed  by  another;  and  yet,  according  to  you, 
he  ought  in  conscience  to  condemn  the  accused,  al- 
though his  conscience  tells  him  the  accused  is  inno- 
cent. According  to  your  doctrine,  therefore,  if  the 
judge  had  himself  committed  the  crime  in  question, 
his  conscience  ought  to  oblige  him  to  condemn  the 
man  falsely  accused  of  it. 

In  my  conscience,  great  saint,  I  conceive  that  you 
are  most  absurdly  and  most  dreadfully  deceived. 
It  is  a  pity  that,  while  possessing  such  a  knowledge 
of  canon  law,  you  should  be  so  little  acquainted  with 
natural  law.  The  duty  of  a  magistrate  to  be  just, 
precedes  that  of  being  a  formalist.  If,  in  virtue  of 
evidence  which  can  never  exceed  probability,  I  were 
to  condemn  a  man  whose  innocence  I  was  otherwise 
convinced  of,  I  should  consider  myself  a  fool  and 
an  assassin. 

Fortunately  all  the  tribunals  of  the  world  think 
differently  from  you.  I  know  not  whether  Fari- 
naceus   and   Grillandus   may   be  of  your   opinion. 


238  Philosophical 

However  that  may  be,  if  ever  you  meet  with 
Cicero,  Ulpian,  Trebonian,  Demoulin,  the  Chancellor 
de  I'Hopital,  or  the  Chancellor  d'Aguesseau,  in  the 
shades,  be  sure  to  ask  pardon  of  them  for  falling  into 
such  an  error. 

Of  a  Deceitful  Conscience. 

The  best  thing  perhaps  that  was  ever  said  upon 
this  important  subject  is  in  the  witty  work  of  "Tris- 
tram Shandy,"  written  by  a  clergyman  of  the  name 
of  Sterne,  the  second  Rabelais  of  England.  It  re- 
sembles those  small  satires  of  antiquity,  the  essen- 
tial spirit  of  which  is  so  piquant  and  precious. 

An  old  half-pay  captain  and  his  corporal,  assisted 
by  Doctor  Slop,  put  a  number  of  very  ridiculous 
questions.  In  these  questions  the  French  divines 
are  not  spared.  Mention  is  particularly  made  of  a 
memoir  presented  to  the  Sorbonne  by  a  surgeon,  re- 
questing permission  to  baptize  unborn  children  by 
means  of  a  clyster-pipe,  which  might  be  introduced 
into  the  womb  without  injuring  either  the  mother  or 
the  child.  At  length  the  corporal  is  directed  to  read 
to  them  a  sermon,  composed  by  the  same  clergy- 
man, Sterne. 

Among  many  particulars,  superior  even  to  those 
of  Rembrandt  and  Calot,  it  describes  a  gentleman, 
a  man  of  the  world,  spending  his  time  in  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  table,  in  gaming,  and  debauchery,  yet 
doing  nothing  to  expose  himself  to  the  reproaches 
of  what  is  called  good  company,  and  consequently 


Dictionary.  239 

never  incurring  his  own.  His  conscience  and  his 
honor  accompany  him  to  the  theatres,  to  the  gam- 
ing houses,  and  are  more  particularly  present  when 
he  liberally  pays  his  lady  under  protection.  He 
punishes  severely,  when  in  office,  the  petty  larcenies 
of  the  vulgar,  lives  a  life  of  gayety,  and  dies  without 
the  slightest  feeling  of  remorse. 

Doctor  Slop  interrupts  the  reading  to  observe  that 
such  a  case  was  impossible  with  respect  to  a  follower 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  could  happen  only 
among  papists.  At  last  the  sermon  adduces  the  ex- 
ample of  David,  who  sometimes  possessed  a  con- 
science tender  and  enlightened,  at  others  hardened 
and  dark. 

When  he  has  it  in  his  power  to  assassinate  his 
king  in  a  cavern,  he  scruples  going  beyond  cutting 
off  a  corner  of  his  robe — here  is  the  tender  con- 
science. He  passes  an  entire  year  without  feeling 
the  slightest  compunction  for  his  adultery  with  Bath- 
sheba  and  his  murder  of  Uriah — here  is  the  same 
conscience  in  a  state  of  obduracy  and  darkness. 

Such,  says  the  preacher,  are  the  greater  number 
of  mankind.  We  concede  to  this  clergyman  that 
the  great  ones  of  the  world  are  very  often  in  this 
state ;  the  torrent  of  pleasures  and  affairs  urges 
them  almost  irresistibly  on ;  they  have  no  time  to 
keep  a  conscience.  Conscience  is  proper  enough 
for  the  people ;  but  even  the  people  dispense  with 
it,  when  the  question  is  how  to  gain  money.  It 
is    judicious,    however,    at    times,    to    endeavor   to 


240  Philosophical 

awaken  conscience  both  in  mantua-makers  and  in 
monarchs,  by  the  inculcation  of  a  morahty  cal- 
culated to  make  an  impression  upon  both ;  but,  in 
order  to  make  this  impression,  it  is  necessary  to 
preach  better  than  modern  preachers  usually  do, 
who  seldom  talk  effectively  to  either. 

Liberty  of  Conscience. 
[Translated  from  the  German.] 

[We  do  not  adopt  the  whole  of  the  following  ar- 
ticle; but,  as  it  contains  some  truths,  we  did  not 
consider  ourselves  obliged  to  omit  it ;  and  we  do 
not  feel  ourselves  called  upon  to  justify  what  may 
be  advanced  in  it  with  too  great  rashness  or  se- 
verity.— Author.  ] 

"The  almoner  of  Prince ,  who  is  a  Roman 

Catholic,  threatened  an  anabaptist  that  he  would  get 
him  banished  from  the  small  estates  which  the 
prince  governed.  He  told  him  that  there  were  only 
three  authorized  sects  in  the  empire — that  which 
eats  Jesus  Christ,  by  faith  alone,  in  a  morsel  of 
bread,  while  drinking  out  of  a  cup ;  that  which  eats 
Jesus  Christ  with  bread  alone ;  and  that  which  eats 
Jesus  Christ  in  body  and  in  soul,  without  either 
bread  or  wine ;  and  that  as  for  the  anabaptist  who 
does  not  in  any  way  eat  God,  he  was  not  fat  to  live 
in  monseigneur's  territory.  At  last,  the  conversa- 
tion kindling  into  greater  violence,  the  almoner 
fiercely  threatened  the  anabaptist  that  he  would  get 
him  hanged.    'So  much  the  worse  for  his  highness,' 


Dictionary.  241 

replied  the  anabaptist ;  'I  am  a  large  manufacturer ; 
I  employ  two  hundred  workmen;  I  occasion  the 
influx  of  two  hundred  thousand  crowns  a  year  into 
his  territories ;  my  family  will  go  and  settle  some- 
where else ;  monseigneur  will  in  consequence  be  a 
loser.' 

"  'But  suppose  monseigneur  hangs  up  your  two 
hundred  workmen  and  your  family,'  rejoined  the 
almoner,  'and  gives  your  manufactory  to  good  Cath- 
olics ?' 

"  'I  defy  him  to  do  it,'  says  the  old  gentleman. 
*A  manufactory  is  not  to  be  given  like  a  farm ;  be- 
cause industry  cannot  be  given.  It  would  be  more 
silly  for  him  to  act  so  than  to  order  all  his  horses 
to  be  killed,  because,  being  a  bad  horseman,  one 
may  have  thrown  him  off  his  back.  The  interest 
of  monseigneur  does  not  consist  in  my  swallowing 
the  godhead  in  a  w^afer,  but  in  my  procuring  some- 
thing to  eat  for  his  subjects,  and  increasing  the  rev- 
enues by  my  industry.  I  am  a  gentleman ;  and  al- 
though I  had  the  misfortune  not  to  be  born  such,  my 
occupation  would  compel  me  to  become  one ;  for 
mercantile  transactions  are  of  a  very  different  na- 
ture from  those  of  a  court,  and  from  your  own. 
There  can  be  no  success  in  them  without  probity. 
Of  what  consequence  is  it  to  you  that  I  was  baptized 
at  what  is  called  the  age  of  discretion,  and  you  while 
you  were  an  infant?  Of  what  consequence  is  it  to 
you  that  I  worship  God  after  the  manner  of  my 
fathers?     Were  you  able  to  follow  up  your  wise 

Vol.  7—16 


242  Philosophical 

maxims,  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other, 
you  will  hang  up  the  Greek,  who  does  not  believe 
that  the  spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the 
Son;  all  the  English,  all  the  Hollanders,  Danes, 
Swedes,  Icelanders,  Prussians,  Hanoverians,  Sax- 
ons, Holsteiners,  Hessians,  Wiirtembergers,  Ber- 
nese, Hamburgers,  Cossacks,  Wallachians,  and 
Russians,  none  of  whom  believe  the  pope  to  be  in- 
fallible ;  all  the  Mussulmans,  who  believe  in  one 
God,  and  who  give  him  neither  father  nor  mother; 
the  Indians,  whose  religion  is  more  ancient  than  the 
Jewish  ;  and  the  lettered  Chinese,  who,  for  the  space 
of  four  thousand  years,  have  served  one  only  God 
without  superstition  and  without  fanaticism.  This, 
then,  is  what  you  would  perform  had  you  but  the 
power!'  'Most  assuredly,'  says  the  monk,  'for  the 
zeal  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  devours  me.'  'Zelus 
domus  sucr  comedit  ine.' 

"  'Just  tell  me  now,  my  good  almoner,'  resumed 
the  anabaptist,  'are  you  a  Dominican,  or  a  Jesuit, 
or  a  devil  ?'  'I  am  a  Jesuit,'  says  the  other.  'Alas, 
my  friend,  if  you  are  not  a  devil,  why  do  you  ad- 
vance things  so  utterly  diabolical?'  'Because  the 
reverend  father,  the  rector,  has  commanded  me  to 
do  so.'  'And  who  commanded  the  reverend  father, 
the  rector,  to  commit  such  an  abomination?'  'The 
provincial.'  'From  whom  did  the  provincial  receive 
the  command?'  'From  our  general,  and  all  to  please 
the  pope.' 

"The  poor  anabaptist  exclaimed :  'Ye  holy  popes, 


Dictionary.  243 

who  are  at  Rome  in  possession  of  the  throne  of  the 
Csesars — archbishops,  bishops,  and  abbes,  become 
sovereigns,  I  respect  and  fly  you ;  but  if,  in  the  re- 
cesses of  your  heart,  you  confess  that  your  opulence 
and  power  are  founded  only  on  the  ignorance  and 
stupidity  of  our  fathers,  at  least  enjoy  them  with 
moderation.  We  do  not  wish  to  dethrone  you  ;  but 
do  not  crush  us.  Enjoy  yourselves,  and  let  us  be 
quiet.  If  otherwise,  tremble,  lest  at  last  people 
should  lose  their  patience,  and  reduce  you,  for  the 
good  of  your  souls,  to  the  condition  of  the  apostles, 
of  whom  you  pretend  to  be  the  successors.' 

"  'Wretch !  you  would  wish  the  pope  and  the 
bishop  of  Wiirtemberg  to  gain  heaven  by  evan- 
gelical poverty !'  'You,  reverend  father,  would  wish 
to  have  me  hanged  !'  " 

CONSEQUENCE. 

What  is  our  real  nature,  and  what  sort  of  a  cur- 
ious and  contemptible  understanding  do  we  pos- 
sess ?  A  man  may,  it  appears,  draw  the  most  cor- 
rect and  luminous  conclusions,  and  yet  be  destitute 
of  common  sense.  This  is,  in  fact,  too  true.  The 
Athenian  fool,  who  believed  that  all  the  vessels 
which  came  into  the  port  belonged  to  him,  could  cal- 
culate to  a  nicety  what  the  cargoes  of  those  vessels 
were  w'orth,  and  within  how  many  days  they  would 
arrive  from  Smyrna  at  the  Piraeus. 

We  have  seen  idiots  who  could  calculate  and  rea- 
son in  a  still  more  extraordinary  manner.     They 


244  Philosophical 

were  not  idiots,  then,  you  tell  me.  I  ask  your  par- 
don— they  certainly  were.  They  rested  their  whole 
superstructure  on  an  absurd  principle;  they  regu- 
larly strung  together  chimeras.  A  man  may  walk 
well,  and  go  astray  at  the  same  time ;  and,  then,  the 
better  he  walks  the  farther  astray  he  goes. 

The  Fo  of  the  Indians  was  son  of  an  elephant, 
who  condescended  to  produce  offspring  by  an  Indian 
princess,  who,  in  consequence  of  this  species  of 
left-handed  union,  was  brought  to  bed  of  the  god 
Fo.  This  princess  was  sister  to  an  emperor  of  the 
Indies.  Fo,  then,  was  the  nephew  of  that  emperor, 
and  the  grandson  of  the  elephant  and  the  monarch 
were  cousins-german ;  therefore,  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  state,  the  race  of  the  emperor  being  ex- 
tinct, the  descendants  of  the  elephant  become  the 
rightful  successors.  Admit  the  principle,  and  the 
conclusion  is  perfectly  correct. 

It  is  said  that  the  divine  elephant  was  nine  stand- 
ard feet  in  height.  You  reasonably  suppose  that 
the  gate  of  his  stable  should  be  above  nine  feet  in 
height,  in  order  to  admit  his  entering  with  ease. 
He  consumed  twenty  pounds  of  rice  every  day,  and 
twenty  pounds  of  sugar,  and  drank  twenty-five 
pounds  of  water.  You  find,  by  using  your  arith- 
metic, that  he  swallows  thirty-six  thousand  five  hun- 
dred pounds  weight  in  the  course  of  a  year;  it 
is  impossible  to  reckon  more  correctly.  But  did 
your  elephant  ever,  in  fact,  exist?  Was  be  the  em- 
peror's brother-in-law?     Had  his  wife  a  child  by 


Dictionary.  245 

this  left-handed  union  ?  This  is  the  matter  to  be  in- 
vestigated. Twenty  different  authors,  who  Hved  in 
Cochin  China,  have  successively  written  about  it ; 
it  is  incumbent  on  you  to  collate  these  twenty  au- 
thors, to  weigh  their  testimonies,  to  consult  ancient 
records,  to  see  if  there  is  any  mention  of  this  ele- 
phant in  the  public  registers ;  to  examine  whether 
the  whole  account  is  not  a  fable,  which  certain  im- 
postors have  an  interest  in  sanctioning.  You  pro- 
ceed upon  an  extravagant  principle,  but  draw  from 
it  correct  conclusions. 

Logic  is  not  so  much  wanting  to  men  as  the 
source  of  logic.  It  is  not  sufficient  for  a  madman  to 
say  six  vessels  which  belong  to  me  carry  two  hun- 
dred tons  each ;  the  ton  is  two  thousand  pounds 
weight ;  I  have  therefore  twelve  hundred  thousand 
pounds  weight  of  merchandise  in  the  port  of  the 
Piraeus.  The  great  point  is,  are  those  vessels  yours? 
That  is  the  principle  upon  which  your  fortune  de- 
pends ;  when  that  is  settled,  you  may  estimate  and 
reckon  up  afterwards. 

An  ignorant  man,  who  is  a  fanatic,  and  who  at 
the  same  time  strictly  draws  his  conclusions  from, 
his  premises,  ought  sometimes  to  be  smothered  to 
death  as  a  madman.  He  has  read  that  Phineas, 
transported  by  a  holy  zeal,  having  found  a  Jew  in 
bed  with  a  Midianitish  woman,  slew  them  both,  and 
was  imitated  by  the  Levites,  who  massacred  every 
household  that  consisted  one-half  of  Midianites 
and  the  other  of  Jews.    He  learns  that  Mr, , 


246  Philosophical 

his  Catholic  neighbor,  intrigued  with  Mrs.  , 

another  neighbor,  but  a  Huguenot,  and  he  will  kill 
both  of  them  without  scruple.  It  is  impossible  to 
act  in  greater  consistency  with  principle ;  but  what 
is  the  remedy  for  this  dreadful  disease  of  the  soul? 
It  is  to  accustom  children  betimes  to  admit  nothing 
which  shocks  reason,  to  avoid  relating  to  them  his- 
tories of  ghosts,  apparitions,  witches,  demoniacal 
possessions,  and  ridiculous  prodigies.  A  girl  of  an 
active  and  susceptible  imagination  hears  a  story  of 
demoniacal  possessions  ;  her  nerves  become  shaken, 
she  falls  into  convulsions,  and  believes  herself  pos- 
sessed by  a  demon  or  devil.  I  actually  saw  one 
young  woman  die  in  consequence  of  the  shock  her 
frame  received  from  these  abominable  histories. 

CONSTANTINE. 

SECTION    I. 

The  Age  of  Constanfinc. 
Among  the  ages  which  followed  the  Augustan, 
that  of  Constantine  merits  particular  distinction. 
It  is  immortalized  by  the  great  changes  which  it 
ushered  into  the  world.  It  commenced,  it  is  true, 
with  bringing  back  barbarism.  Not  merely  were 
there  no  Ciceros,  Horaces,  and  Virgils,  any  longer 
to  be  found,  but  there  was  not  even  a  Lucan  or 
a  Seneca ;  there  Avas  not  even  a  philosophic  and  ac- 
curate historian.  Nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  equiv- 
ocal satires  or  mere  random  panegyrics. 


Dictionary.  247 

It  was  at  that  time  that  the  Christians  began  to 
write  history,  but  they  took  not  Titus  Livy,  or 
Thucydides  as  their  models.  The  followers  of  the 
ancient  religion  wrote  with  no  greater  eloquence 
or  truth.  The  two  parties,  in  a  state  of  mutual  ex- 
asperation, did  not  very  scrupulously  investigate 
the  charges  which  they  heaped  upon  their  adver- 
saries ;  and  hence  it  arises  that  the  same  man  is 
sometimes  represented  as  a  god  and  sometimes  as 
a  monster. 

The  decline  of  everything,  in  the  commonest 
mechanical  arts,  as  well  as  in  eloquence  and  virtue, 
took  place  after  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  He 
was  the  last  emperor  of  the  sect  of  stoics,  who  ele- 
vated man  above  himself  by  rendering  him  severe 
to  himself  only,  and  compassionate  to  others.  Af- 
ter the  death  of  this  emperor,  who  was  a  genuine 
philosopher,  there  was  nothing  but  tyranny  and  con- 
fusion. The  soldiers  frequently  disposed  of  the  em- 
pire. The  senate  had  fallen  into  such  complete  con- 
tempt that,  in  the  time  of  Gallienus,  an  express  law 
was  enacted  to  prevent  senators  from  engaging  in 
war.  Thirty  heads  of  parties  were  seen,  at  one  time, 
assuming  the  title  of  emperor  in  thirty  provinces 
of  the  empire.  The  barbarians  already  poured  in, 
on  every  side,  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century, 
on  this  rent  and  lacerated  empire.  Yet  it  was  held 
together  by  the  mere  military  discipline  on  which 
it  had  been  founded. 

During  all  these  calamities,  Christianity  gradu- 


248  Philosophical 

ally  established  itself,  particularly  in  Eg}'pt,  Syria, 
and  on  the  coasts  of  Asia  Minor.  The  Roman  Em- 
pire admitted  all  sorts  of  religions,  as  well  as  all 
sects  of  philosophy.  The  worship  of  Osiris  was  per- 
mitted, and  even  the  Jews  were  left  in  the  enjoyment 
of  considerable  privileges,  notwithstanding  their  re- 
volts. But  the  people  in  the  provinces  frequently 
rose  up  against  the  Christians.  The  magistrates 
persecuted  them,  and  edicts  were  frequently  ob- 
tained against  them  from  the  emperors.  There  is 
no  ground  for  astonishment  at  the  general  hatred 
in  which  Christians  were  at  first  held,  while  so  many 
other  religions  were  tolerated.  The  reason  was  that 
neither  Eg}^ptians  nor  Jews,  nor  the  worshippers  of 
the  goddess  of  Syria  and  so  many  other  foreign  de- 
ities, ever  declared  open  hostility  to  the  gods  of  the 
empire.  They  did  not  array  themselves  against  the 
established  religion ;  but  one  of  the  most  imperious 
duties  of  the  Christians  was  to  exterminate  the  pre- 
vailing worship.  The  priests  of  the  gods  raised  a 
clamor  on  perceiving  the  diminution  of  sacrifices 
and  ofiFerings ;  and  the  people,  ever  fanatical  and 
impetuous,  were  stirred  up  against  the  Christians, 
while  in  the  meantime  many  emperors  protected 
them.  Adrian  expressly  forbade  the  persecution  of 
them.  Marcus  Aurelius  commanded  that  they 
should  not  be  prosecuted  on  account  of  religion. 
Caracalla,  Heliogabalus,  Alexander,  Philip,  and  Gal- 
lienus  left  them  entire  liberty.  They  had,  in  the 
third  century,  public  churches  numerously  attended 


Dictionary.  249 

and  very  opulent ;  and  so  great  was  the  liberty  they 
enjoyed  that,  in  the  course  of  that  century,  they  held 
sixteen  councils.  The  road  to  dignities  was  shut 
up  against  the  first  Christians,  who  were  nearly  all 
of  obscure  condition,  and  they  turned  their  attention 
to  commerce,  and  some  of  them  amassed  great  af- 
fluence. This  is  the  resource  of  all  societies  that 
cannot  have  access  to  offices  in  the  state.  Such  has 
been  the  case  with  the  Calvinists  in  France,  all  the 
Nonconformists  in  England,  the  Catholics  in  Hol- 
land, the  Armenians  in  Persia,  the  Banians  in  India, 
and  the  Jews  all  over  the  world.  However,  at  last 
the  toleration  was  so  great,  and  the  administration 
of  the  government  so  mild,  that  the  Christians 
gained  access  to  all  the  honors  and  dignities  of  the 
state.  They  did  not  sacrifice  to  the  gods  of  the  em- 
pire ;  they  were  not  molested,  whether  they  attended 
or  avoided  the  temples ;  there  was  at  Rome  the 
most  perfect  liberty  with  respect  to  the  exercises  of 
their  religion ;  none  were  compelled  to  engage  in 
them.  The  Christians,  therefore,  enjoyed  the  same 
liberty  as  others.  It  is  so  true  that  they  attained  to 
honors,  that  Diocletian  and  Galerius  deprived  no 
fewer  than  three  hundred  and  three  of  them  of  those 
honors,  in  the  persecution  of  which  we  shall  have 
to  speak. 

It  is  our  duty  to  adore  Providence  in  all  its  dis- 
pensations ;  but  I  confine  myself  to  political  history. 
Manes,  under  the  reign  of  Probus,  about  the  year 
278,  formed  a  new  religion  in  Alexandria.     The 


250  Philosophical 

principles  of  this  sect  were  made  up  of  some  ancient 
doctrines  of  the  Persians  and  certain  tenets  of  Chris- 
tianity. Probns,  and  his  successor,  Carus,  left 
Manes  and  the  Christians  in  the  enjoyment  of  peace. 
Numerien  permitted  them  entire  liberty.  Diocletian 
protected  the  Christians,  and  tolerated  the  Mani- 
chseans,  during  twelve  years ;  but  in  296  he  issued 
an  edict  against  the  Manichaeans,  and  proscribed 
them  as  enemies  to  the  empire  and  adherents  of  the 
Persians.  The  Christians  were  not  comprehended 
in  the  edict ;  they  continued  in  tranquillity  under 
Diocletian,  and  made  open  profession  of  their  re- 
ligion throughout  the  whole  empire  until  the  latter 
years  of  that  prince's  reign. 

To  complete  the  sketch,  it  is  necessary  to  describe 
of  what  at  that  period  the  Roman  Empire  consisted. 
Notwithstanding  internal  and  foreign  shocks,  not- 
withstanding the  incursions  of  barbarians,  it  com- 
prised all  the  possessions  of  the  grand  seignor  at 
the  present  day,  except  Arabia ;  all  that  the  house 
of  Austria  possesses  in  Germany,  and  all  the  Ger- 
man provinces  as  far  as  the  Elbe ;  Italy,  France, 
Spain,  England,  and  half  of  Scotland ;  all  Africa 
as  far  as  the  desert  of  Sahara,  and  even  the  Canary 
Isles.  All  these  nations  were  retained  under  the 
yoke  by  bodies  of  military  less  considerable  than 
would  be  raised  by  Germany  and  France  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  when  in  actual  war. 

This  immense  power  became  more  confirmed  and 
enlarged,  from  C?esar  down  to  Theodosius,  as  well 


Dictionary.  251 

by  laws,  police,  and  real  services  conferred  on  the 
people,  as  by  arms  and  terror.  It  is  even  yet  a  mat- 
ter of  astonishment  that  none  of  these  conquered 
nations  have  been  able,  since  they  became  their  own 
rulers,  to  form  such  highways,  and  to  erect  such 
amphitheatres  and  public  baths,  as  their  conquerors 
bestowed  upon  them.  Countries  which  are  at  pres- 
ent nearly  barbarous  and  deserted,  were  then  pop- 
ulous and  well  governed.  Such  were  Epirus,  Mace- 
donia, Thessaly,  Illyria,  Pannonia,  with  Asia  Minor, 
and  the  coasts  of  Africa ;  but  it  must  also  be  ad- 
mitted that  Germany,  France,  and  Britain  were  then 
very  different  from  what  they  are  now.  These 
three  states  are  those  which  have  most  benefited  by 
governing  themselves ;  yet  it  required  nearly  twelve 
centuries  to  place  those  kingdoms  in  the  flourishing 
situation  in  which  we  now  behold  them ;  but  it  must 
be  acknowledged  that  all  the  rest  have  lost  much  by 
passing  under  different  laws.  The  ruins  of  Asia 
Minor  and  Greece,  the  depopulation  of  Egypt  and 
the  barbarism  of  Africa,  are  still  existing  testimo- 
nials of  Roman  greatness.  The  great  number  of 
flourishing  cities  which  covered  those  countries  had 
now  become  miserable  villages,  and  the  soil  had  be- 
come barren  under  the  hands  of  a  brutalized  pop- 
ulation. 

SECTION    II, 

Character  of  Consfanfine. 
I   will  not  here  speak  of  the  confusion  which 
agitated  the  empire  after  the  abdication  of  Diocle- 


252  Philosophical 

tian.  There  were  after  his  death  six  emperors  at 
once.  Constantine  triumphed  over  them  all,  changed 
the  religion  of  the  empire,  and  was  not  merely  the 
author  of  that  great  revolution,  but  of  all  those 
which  have  since  occurred  in  the  west.  What  was 
his  character?  Ask  it  of  Julian,  of  Zosimus,  of 
Sozomen,  and  of  Victor ;  they  will  tell  you  that  he 
acted  at  first  like  a  great  prince,  afterwards  as  a  pub- 
lic robber,  and  that  the  last  stage  of  his  life  was  that 
of  a  sensualist,  a  trifler,  and  a  prodigal.  They  will 
describe  him  as  ever  ambitious,  cruel,  and  san- 
guinar^^  Ask  his  character  of  Eusebius,  of  Greg- 
ory Nazianzen,  and  Lactantius ;  they  will  inform 
you  that  he  was  a  perfect  man.  Between  these  two 
extremes  authentic  facts  alone  can  enable  us  to  ob- 
tain the  truth.  He  had  a  father-in-law,  whom  he 
impelled  to  hang  himself ;  he  had  a  brother-in-law, 
whom  he  ordered  to  be  strangled ;  he  had  a  nephew 
twelve  or  thirteen  years  old,  whose  throat  he  ordered 
to  be  cut ;  he  had  an  eldest  son,  whom  he  beheaded  ; 
he  had  a  wife,  whom  he  ordered  to  be  suffocated  in 
a  bath.  An  old  Gallic  author  said  that  "he  loved  to 
make  a  clear  house." 

If  you  add  to  all  these  domestic  acts  that,  being 
on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  in  pursuit  of  some  hordes 
of  Franks  who  resided  in  those  parts,  and  having 
taken  their  kings,  who  probably  were  of  the  family 
of  our  Pharamond  or  Clodion  le  Chevclu,  he  ex- 
posed them  to  beasts  for  his  diversion  ;  you  may  in- 
fer from  all  this,  without  any  apprehension  of  being 


Dictionary.  253 

deceived,  that  he  was  not  the  most  courteous  and 
accommodating  personage  in  the  world. 

Let  us  examine,  in  this  place,  the  principal  events 
of  his  reign.  His  father,  Constantius  Chlorus,  was 
in  the  heart  of  Britain,  where  he  had  for  some 
months  assumed  the  title  of  emperor.  Constantine 
was  at  Nicomedia,  with  the  emperor  Galerius.  He 
asked  permission  of  the  emperor  to  go  to  see  his 
father,  who  was  ill.  Galerius  granted  it,  without 
difficulty.  Constantine  set  of¥  with  government  re- 
lays, called  vcredarii.  It  might  be  said  to  be  as 
dangerous  to  be  a  post-horse  as  to  be  a  member  of 
the  family  of  Constantine,  for  he  ordered  all  the 
horses  to  be  hamstrung  after  he  had  done  with  them, 
fearful  lest  Galerius  should  revoke  his  permission 
and  order  him  to  return  to  Nicomedia.  He  found 
his  father  at  the  point  of  death,  and  caused  himself 
to  be  recognized  emperor  by  the  small  number  of 
Roman  troops  at  that  time  in  Britain. 

An  election  of  a  Roman  emperor  at  York,  by  five 
or  six  thousand  men,  was  not  likely  to  be  considered 
legitimate  at  Rome.  It  wanted  at  least  the  formula 
of  "Senatus  populusque  Romanus."  The  senate, 
the  people,  and  the  prsetorian  bands  unanimously 
elected  Maxentius,  son  of  the  Caesar  Maximilian 
Hercules,  who  had  been  already  Caesar,  and  brother 
of  that  Fausta  whom  Constantine  had  married, 
and  whom  he  afterwards  caused  to  be  suffocated. 
This  Maxentius  is  called  a  tyrant  and  usurper  by 
our  historians,  who  are  uniformly  the  partisans  of 


254  Philosophical 

the  successful.  He  was  the  protector  of  the  pag^an 
rehgion  against  Constantine,  who  already  began  to 
declare  himself  for  the  Christians.  Being  both  pa- 
gan and  vanquished,  he  could  not  but  be  an  abom- 
inable man. 

Eusebius  tells  us  that  Constantine,  when  going 
to  Rome  to  fight  Maxentius,  saw  in  the  clouds,  as 
well  as  his  whole  army,  the  grand  imperial  standard 
called  the  laharum,  surmounted  with  a  Latin  P.  or 
a  large  Greek  R.  with  a  cross  in  "saltier,''  and  cer- 
tain Greek  words  which  signified,  "By  this  sign  thou 
shalt  conquer."  Some  authors  pretend  that  this  sign 
appeared  to  him  at  Besancon,  others  at  Cologne, 
some  at  Trier  and  others  at  Troyes.  It  is  strange 
that  in  all  these  places  heaven  should  have  expressed 
its  meaning  in  Greek.  It  would  have  appeared 
more  natural  to  the  weak  understandings  of  men 
that  this  sign  should  have  appeared  in  Italy  on  the 
day  of  the  battle  ;  but  then  it  would  have  been  neces- 
sary that  the  inscription  should  have  been  in  Latin. 
A  learned  antiquary,  of  the  name  of  Loisel,  has  re- 
futed this  narrative ;  but  he  was  treated  as  a  repro- 
bate. 

It  might,  however,  be  worth  while  to  reflect  that 
this  war  was  not  a  war  of  religion,  that  Constantine 
was  not  a  saint,  that  he  died  suspected  of  being  an 
Arian,  after  having  persecuted  the  orthodox ;  and, 
therefore,  that  there  is  no  very  obvious  motive  to 
support  this  prodigy. 

After  this  victory,  the  senate  hastened  to  pay  its 


Dictionary.  255 

devotion  to  the  conqueror,  and  to  express  its  detesta- 
tion of  the  memory  of  the  conquered.  The  trium- 
phal arch  of  Alarcus  Aurehus  was  speedily  dis- 
mantled to  adorn  that  of  Constantine.  A  statue  of 
gold  was  prepared  for  him,  an  honor  which  had 
never  been  shown  except  to  the  gods.  He  received 
it,  notwithstanding  the  labarum,  and  received  fur- 
ther the  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  which  he  re- 
tained all  his  life.  His  first  care,  according  to  Zos- 
imus,  was  to  exterminate  the  whole  race  of  the 
tyrant,  and  his  principal  friends ;  after  which  he  as- 
sisted very  graciously  at  the  public  spectacles  and 
games. 

The  aged  Diocletian  was  at  that  time  dying  in 
his  retreat  at  Salonica.  Constantine  should  not  have 
been  in  such  haste  to  pull  down  his  statues  at  Rome ; 
he  should  have  recollected  that  the  forgotten  em- 
peror had  been  the  benefactor  of  his  father,  and 
that  he  was  indebted  to  him  for  the  empire.  Al- 
though he  had  conquered  ]\Iaxentius,  Licinius,  his 
brother-in-law,  an  Augustus  like  himself,  was  still 
to  be  got  rid  of ;  and  Licinius  was  equally  anxious 
to  be  rid  of  Constantine,  if  he  had  it  in  his  power. 
However,  their  quarrels  not  having  yet  broken  out 
in  hostility,  they  issued  conjointly  at  Milan,  in  313, 
the  celebrated  edict  of  liberty  of  conscience.  "We 
grant,"  they  say,  "to  all  the  liberty  of  following 
whatever  religion  they  please,  in  order  to  draw  down 
the  blessing  of  heaven  upon  us  and  our  subjects; 
we  declare  that  we  have  sfranted  to  the  Christians 


256  Philosophical 

the  free  and  full  power  of  exercising  their  religion ; 
it  being  understood  that  all  others  shall  enjoy  the 
same  liberty,  in  order  to  preserve  the  tranquillity 
of  our  government."  A  volume  might  be  written  on 
such  an  edict,  but  I  shall  merely  venture  a  few  lines. 

Constantine  was  not  as  yet  a  Christian ;  nor,  in- 
deed, was  his  colleague,  Licinius,  one.  There  was 
still  an  emperor  or  a  tyrant  to  be  exterminated  ;  this 
was  a  determined  pagan,  of  the  name  of  Maximin. 
Licinius  fought  with  him  before  he  fought  with 
Constantine.  Heaven  was  still  more  favorable  to 
him  than  to  Constantine  himself :  for  the  latter  had 
only  the  apparition  of  a  standard,  but  Licinius  that 
of  an  angel.  This  angel  taught  him  a  prayer,  by 
means  of  which  he  would  be  sure  to  vanquish  the 
barbarian  Maximin.  Licinius  wrote  it  down,  or- 
dered it  to  be  recited  three  times  by  his  army,  and 
obtained  a  complete  victory.  If  this  same  Licinius, 
the  brother-in-law  of  Constantine,  had  reigned  hap- 
pily, we  should  have  heard  of  nothing  but  his  an- 
gel ;  but  Constantine  having  had  him  hanged,  and 
his  son  slain,  and  become  absolute  master  of  every- 
thing, nothing  has  been  talked  of  but  Constantine's 
labarum. 

It  is  believed  that  he  put  to  death  his  eldest  son 
Crispus,  and  his  own  wife  Fausta,  the  same  year 
that  he  convened  the  Council  of  Nice.  Zosimus  and 
Sozomen  pretend  that,  the  heathen  priests  having 
told  him  that  there  were  no  expiations  for  such 
great  crimes,  he  then  made  open  profession  of  Chris- 


Dictionary  257 

tianity,  and  demolished  many  temples  in  the  East. 
It  is  not  very  probable  that  the  pagan  pontiffs 
should  have  omitted  so  fine  an  opportunity  of  get- 
ting back  their  grand  pontiff,  who  had  abandoned 
them.  However,  it  is  by  no  means  impossible  that 
there  might  be  among  them  some  severe  men ; 
scrupulous  and  austere  persons  are  to  be  found 
everywhere.  What  is  more  extraordinary ,  is,  that 
Constantine,  after  becoming  a  Christian,  performed 
no  penance  for  his  parricide.  It  was  at  Rome  that  he 
exercised  that  cruelty,  and  from  that  time  residence 
at  Rome  became  hateful  to  him.  He  quitted  it  for- 
ever, and  went  to  lay  the  foundations  of  Constanti- 
nople. How  dared  he  say,  in  one  of  his  rescripts, 
that  he  transferred  the  seat  of  empire  to  Constanti- 
nople, "by  the  command  of  God  himself?"  Is  it 
anything  but  an  impudent  mockery  of  God  and 
man?  If  God  had  given  him  any  command,  would 
it  not  have  been — not  to  assassinate  his  wife  and 
son? 

Diocletian  had  already  furnished  an  example  of 
transferring  the  empire  towards  Asia.  The  pride, 
the  despotism,  and  the  general  manners  of  the  Asiat- 
ics disgusted  the  Romans,  depraved  and  slavish  as 
they  had  become.  The  emperors  had  not  ventured 
to  require,  at  Rome,  that  their  feet  should  be  kissed, 
nor  to  introduce  a  crowd  of  eunuchs  into  their  pal- 
aces. Diocletian  began  in  Nicomedia,  and  Constan- 
tine completed  the  system  at  Constantinople,  to  as- 
similate the  Roman  court  to  the  courts  of  the  Per- 
Voi.  7—17 


1258  Philosophical 

sians.  The  cit}'  of  Rome  from  that  time  languished 
in  decay,  and  the  old  Roman  spirit  declined  with  her. 
Constantine  thus  effected  the  greatest  injury  to  the 
empire  that  was  in  his  power. 

Of  all  the  emperors,  he  was  unquestionably  the 
most  absolute.  Augustus  had  left  an  image  of  lib- 
erty ;  Tiberius,  and  even  Nero,  had  humored  the 
senate  and  people  of  Rome ;  Constantine  humored 
none.  He  had  at  first  established  his  power  in  Rome 
by  disbanding  those  haughty  praetorians  who  con- 
sidered themselves  the  masters  of  the  emperors.  He 
made  an  entire  separation  between  the  gown  and 
the  sword.  The  depositories  of  the  laws,  kept  down 
under  military  power,  were  only  jurists  in  chains. 
The  provinces  of  the  empire  were  governed  upon  a 
new  system. 

The  grand  object  of  Constantine  was  to  be  mas- 
ter in  everything;  he  was  so  in  the  Church,  as  well 
as  in  the  State.  We  behold  him  convoking  and  open- 
ing the  Council  of  Nice ;  advancing  into  the  midst 
of  the  assembled  fathers,  covered  over  with  jewels, 
and  with  the  diadem  on  his  head,  seating  himself  in 
the  highest  place,  and  banishing  unconcernedly 
sometimes  Arius  and  sometimes  Athanasius.  He 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  Christianity  without  being 
a  Christian ;  for  at  that  time  baptism  was  essential 
to  any  person's  becoming  one :  he  was  only  a  cat- 
echumen. The  usage  of  waiting  for  the  approach 
of  death  before  immersing  in  the  water  of  regenera- 
tion, was  beginning  to  decline  with  respect  to  pri- 


Dictionary.  259 

vate  individuals.  If  Constantine,  by  delaying  his 
baptism  till  near  the  point  of  death,  entertained  the 
notion  that  he  might  commit  every  act  with  impu- 
nity in  the  hope  of  a  complete  expiation,  it  was  un- 
fortunate for  the  human  race  that  such  an  opinion 
should  have  ever  suggested  itself  to  the  mind  of  a 
man  in  possession  of  imcontrolled  power. 

CONTRADICTIONS. 

SECTION    I. 

The  more  we  see  of  the  world,  the  more  wc  see 
it  abounding  in  contradictions  and  inconsistencies. 
To  begin  with  the  Grand  Turk :  he  orders  every 
head  that  he  dislikes  struck  off,  and  can  very  rarely 
preserve  his  own.  If  we  pass  from  the  Grand  Turk 
to  the  Holy  Father,  he  confirms  the  election  of 
emperors,  and  has  kings  among  his  vassals ;  but  he 
is  not  so  powerful  as  a  duke  of  Savoy.  He  expe- 
dites orders  for  America  and  Africa,  yet  could  not 
withhold  the  slightest  of  its  privileges  from  the  re- 
public of  Lucca.  The  emperor  is  the  king  of  the 
Romans ;  but  the  right  of  their  king  consists  in 
holding  the  pope's  stirrup,  and  handing  the  water 
to  him  at  mass.  The  English  serve  their  monarch 
upon  their  knees,  but  they  depose,  imprison,  and 
behead  him. 

Men  who  make  a  vow  of  poverty,  gain  in  con- 
sequence an  income  of  about  two  hundred  thousand 
crowns  ;  and,  in  virtue  of  their  vow  of  humility,  they 


l6o  Philosophical 

become  absolute  sovereigns.  The  plurality  of  bene- 
fices with  care  of  souls  is  severely  denounced  at 
Rome,  yet  every  day  it  despatches  a  bull  to  some 
German,  to  enable  him  to  hold  five  or  six  bishoprics 
at  once.  The  reason,  we  are  told,  is  that  the  German 
bishops  have  no  cure  of  souls.  The  chancellor  of 
France  is  the  first  person  in  the  State,  but  he  cannot. 
sit  at  table  with  the  king,  at  least  he  could  not  till 
lately,  although  a  colonel,  who  is  scarcely  perhaps 
a  gentleman — gcntil-homine — may  enjoy  that  dis- 
tinction. The  wife  of  a  provincial  governor  is  a 
queen  in  the  province,  but  merely  a  citizen's  wife  at 
court. 

Persons  convicted  of  the  crime  of  nonconformity 
are  publicly  roasted,  and  in  all  our  colleges  the  sec- 
ond eclogue  of  Virgil  is  explained  with  great  grav- 
ity, including  Corydon's  declarations  of  love  to  the 
beautiful  Alexis ;  and  it  is  remarked  to  the  boys 
that,  although  Alexis  be  fair  and  Amyntas  brown, 
yet  Amyntas  may  still  deserve  the  preference. 

If  an  unfortunate  philosopher,  without  intending 
the  least  harm,  takes  it  into  his  head  that  the  earth 
turns  round,  or  to  imagine  that  light  comes  from 
the  sun,  or  to  suppose  that  matter  may  contain  some 
other  properties  than  those  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted, he  is  cried  down  as  a  blasphemer,  and  a 
disturber  of  the  public  peace ;  and  yet  there  are 
translations  in  iisum  Delphini  of  the  "Tusculan 
Questions"  of  Cicero,  and  of  Lucretius,  which  are 
two  complete  courses  of  irreligion. 


Dictionary.  261 

Courts  of  justice  no  longer  believe  that  persons 
are  possessed  by  devils,  and  laugh  at  sorcerers ;  but 
Gauffredi  and  Grandier  were  burned  for  sorcery; 
and  one-half  of  a  parliament  wanted  to  sentence  to 
the  stake  a  monk  accused  of  having  bewitched  a 
girl  of  eighteen  by  breathing  upon  her. 

The  skeptical  philosopher  Bayle  was  persecuted, 
even  in  Holland.  La  Motte  le  \'"ayer,  more  of  a 
skeptic,  but  less  of  a  philosopher,  was  preceptor  of 
the  king  Louis  XIV.,  and  of  the  king's  brother. 
Gourville  was  hanged  in  effigy  at  Paris,  while 
French  minister  in  Germany. 

The  celebrated  atheist  Spinoza  lived  and  died  in 
peace.  Vanini,  who  had  merely  written  against 
Aristotle,  was  burned  as  an  atheist ;  he  has,  in  con- 
sequence, obtained  the  honor  of  making  one  article 
in  the  histories  of  the  learned,  and  in  all  the  diction- 
aries, which,  in  fact,  constitute  immense  repositories 
of  lies,  mixed  up  with  a  very  small  portion  of  truth. 
Open  these  books,  and  you  will  there  find  not  merely 
that  Vanini  publicly  taught  atheism  in  his  writings, 
but  that  twelve  professors  of  his  sect  went  with 
him  to  Naples  with  the  intention  of  everywhere 
making  proselytes.  Afterwards,  open  the  books  of 
Vanini.  and  you  will  be  astonished  to  find  in  them 
nothing  but  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God.  Read 
the  following  passage,  taken  from  his  "Amphi- 
thcatrnmr  a  work  equally  unknown  and  con- 
demned :  "God  is  His  own  original  and  boundary, 
without    end    and    without    beginning,    requiring 


l6i  Philosophical 

neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  and  father  of  all  be- 
ginning and  end ;  He  ever  exists,  but  not  in  time ; 
to  Him  there  has  been  no  past,  and  will  be  no  future  ; 
He  reigns  everywhere,  without  being  in  any  place ; 
immovable  without  rest,  rapid  without  motion ;  He 
is  all,  and  out  of  all ;  He  is  in  all,  without  being 
enclosed ;  out  of  everything,  without  being  excluded 
from  anything;  good,  but  without  quality;  entire, 
but  without  parts ;  immutable,  while  changing  the 
whole  universe ;  His  will  is  His  power ;  absolute, 
there  is  nothing  of  Him  of  what  is  merely  possible ; 
all  in  Him  is  real ;  He  is  the  first,  the  middle,  and 
the  last ;  finally,  although  constituting  all,  He  is 
above  all  beings,  out  of  them,  within  them,  beyond 
them,  before  them,  and  after  them."  It  was  after 
such  a  profession  of  faith  that  Vanini  was  declared 
an  atheist.  Upon  what  grounds  was  he  condemned  ? 
Simply  upon  the  deposition  of  a  man  named  Fran- 
con.  In  vain  did  his  books  depose  in  favor  of  him ; 
a  single  enemy  deprived  him  of  life,  and  stigmatized 
his  name  throughout  Europe. 

The  little  book  called  "Cymbaluni  Mniidi;'  whicli 
is  merely  a  cold  imitation  of  Lucian,  and  which  has 
not  the  slightest  or  remotest  reference  to  Chris- 
tianity, was  condemned  to  be  burned.  But  Rabe- 
lais was  printed  "cum  prwilegio" :  and  a  free 
course  was  allowed  to  the  "Turkish  Spy,"  and 
even  to  the  "Persian  Letters" ;  that  volatile,  in- 
genious, and  daring  work,  in  which  there  is  one 
whole  letter  in  favor  of  suicide;    another  in  which 


Dictionary.  263 

we  find  these  words :  "If  we  suppose  such  a  thing 
as  rehgion ;"  a  third,  in  which  it  is  expressly  said 
that  "the  bishops  have  no  other  functions  than  dis- 
pensing with  the  observance  of  the  laws" ;  and, 
finally,  another  in  which  the  pope  is  said  to  be  a 
magician,  who  makes  people  believe  that  three  are 
one,  and  that  the  bread  we  eat  is  not  bread,  etc. 

The  Abbe  St.  Pierre,  a  man  who  could  frequently 
deceive  himself,  but  who  never  wrote  without  a 
view  to  the  public  good,  and  whose  works  were 
called  by  Cardinal  Dubois,  "The  dreams  of  an 
honest  citizen" ;  the  Abbe  St.  Pierre,  I  say,  was 
unanimously  expelled  from  the  French  Academy 
for  having,  in  some  political  work,  preferred  the 
establishment  of  councils  under  the  regency  to  that 
of  secretaries  of  state  under  Louis  XIV. ;  and  for 
saying  that  towards  the  close  of  that  glorious  reign 
the  finances  were  wretchedly  conducted.  The 
author  of  the  "Persian  Letters"  has  not  mentioned 
Louis  XIV.  in  his  book,  except  to  say  that  he  was 
a  magician  who  could  make  his  subjects  believe  that 
paper  was  money ;  that  he  liked  no  government 
but  that  of  Turkey ;  that  he  preferred  a  man  who 
handed  him  a  napkin  to  a  man  who  gained  him 
battles ;  that  he  had  conferred  a  pension  on  a  man 
who  had  run  away  two  leagues,  and  a  government 
upon  another  who  had  run  away  four ;  that  he  was 
overwhelmed  with  poverty,  although  it  is  said,  in 
the  same  letter,  that  his  finances  are  inexhaustible. 
Observe,  then,  I  repeat,  all  that  this  writer,  in  the 


264  Philosophical 

only  work  then  known  to  be  his,  has  said  of  Louis 
XIV.,  the  patron  of  the  French  Academy.  We  may 
add,  too,  as  a  climax  of  contradiction,  that  that 
society  admitted  him  as  a  member  for  having^ 
turned  them  into  ridicule;  for,  of  all  the  books  by 
which  the  public  have  been  entertained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  society,  there  is  not  one  in  which  it 
has  been  treated  more  disrespectfully  than  in  the 
"Persian  Letters."  See  that  letter  wherein  he  says, 
"The  members  of  this  body  have  no  other  business 
than  incessantly  to  chatter;  panegyric  comes  and 
takes  its  place  as  it  were  spontaneously  in  their 
eternal  gabble,"  etc.  After  having  thus  treated  this 
society,  they  praise  him,  on  his  introduction,  for  his 
skill  in  drawing  likenesses. 

Were  I  disposed  to  continue  the  research  into 
the  contraries  to  be  found  in  the  empire  of  letters,  I 
might  give  the  history  of  every  man  of  learning  or 
wit ;  just  in  the  same  manner  as,  if  I  were  inclined 
to  detail  the  contradictions  existing  in  society,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  write  the  history  of  man- 
kind. An  Asiatic,  who  should  travel  to  Europe, 
might  well  consider  us  as  pagans ;  our  week  days 
bear  the  names  of  Mars,  Mercury,  Jupiter,  and 
Venus ;  and  the  nuptials  of  Cupid  and  Psyche  are 
painted  in  the  pope's  palace ;  but,  particularly,  were 
this  Asiatic  to  attend  at  our  opera,  he  would  not 
hesitate  in  concluding  it  to  be  a  festival  in  honor  of 
the  pagan  deities.  Tf  he  endeavored  to  gain  more 
precise    information    respe'^ting   our    manners,    he 


Dictionary.  265 

would  experience  still  greater  astonishment;  he 
would  see,  in  Spain,  that  a  severe  law  forbids  any 
foreigner  from  having  the  slightest  share,  however 
indirect,  in  the  commerce  of  America;  and  that, 
notwithstanding,  foreigners — through  the  medium 
of  Spanish  factors — carry  on  a  commerce  with  it 
to  the  extent  of  fifteen  millions  a  year.  Thus  Spain 
can  be  enriched  only  by  the  violation  of  a  law  always 
subsisting  and  always  evaded.  He  would  see  that 
in  another  country  the  government  establishes  and 
encourages  a  company  for  trading  to  the  Indies, 
while  the  divines  of  that  country  have  declared  the 
receiving  of  dividends  upon  the  shares  offensive  in 
the  sight  of  God.  He  would  see  that  the  offices 
of  a  judge,  a  commander,  a  privy  counsellor,  are 
purchased ;  he  would  be  unable  to  comprehend  why 
it  is  stated  in  the  patents  appointing  to  such  offices 
that  they  have  been  bestowed  gratis  and  without 
purchase,  while  the  receipt  for  the  sum  given  for 
them  is  attached  to  the  commission  itself.  Would 
not  our  Asiatic  be  surprised,  also,  to  see  comedians 
salaried  by  sovereigns,  and  excommunicated  by 
priests?  He  would  inquire  why  a  plebeian  lieuten- 
ant-general, who  had  won  battles,  should  be  subject 
to  the  taillc,  like  a  peasant ;  and  a  sheriff  should  be 
considered,  at  least  in  reference  to  this  point,  as 
noble  as  a  Montmorenc}'^ ;  why,  while  regular 
dramas  are  forbidden  to  be  performed  during  a 
week  sacred  to  edification,  merry-andrews  are  per- 
mitted to  offend  even  the  least  delicate  ears  with 


i66  Philosophical 

their  ribaldry.  He  would  almost  everywhere  see 
our  usages  in  opposition  to  our  laws ;  and  were  we 
to  travel  to  Asia,  we  should  discover  the  existence 
of  exactly  similar  contradictions. 

Men  are  everywhere  inconsistent  alike.  They 
have  made  laws  by  piecemeal,  as  breaches  are  re- 
paired in  w^alls.  Here  the  eldest  sons  take  every- 
thing they  are  able  from  the  younger  ones ;  there 
all  share  equally.  Sometimes  the  Church  has  or- 
dered duels,  sometimes  it  has  anathematized  them. 
The  partisans  and  the  opponents  of  Aristotle  have 
been  both  excommunicated  in  their  turn ;  as  have 
also  the  wearers  of  long  hair  and  short  hair.  There 
has  been  but  one  perfect  law  in  the  world,  and  that 
was  designed  to  regulate  a  species  of  folly — that  is 
to  say,  play.  The  laws  of  play  are  the  only  ones 
which  admit  of  no  exception,  relaxation,  change  or 
tyranny.  A  man  who  has  been  a  lackey,  if  he  plays 
at  lansquenet  with  kings,  is  paid  with  perfect  readi- 
ness when  he  wins.  In  other  cases  the  law  is  every- 
where a  sword,  with  which  the  strongest  party  cuts 
in  pieces  the  weakest. 

In  the  meantime  the  world  goes  on  as  if  every- 
thing was  wdsely  arranged ;  irregularity  is  part  of 
our  nature.  Our  social  world  is  like  the  natural 
globe,  rude  and  unshapely,  but  possessing  a  princi- 
ple of  preservation ;  it  would  be  folly  to  wish  that 
mountains,  seas,  and  rivers  were  traced  in  regular 
and  finished  forms ;  it  would  be  a  still  greater  folly 
to  expect  from  man  the  perfection  of  wisdom ;    \' 


Dictionary.  267 

would  be  as  weak  as  to  wish  to  attach  wings  to 
dogs  or  horns  to  eagles. 

Examples  Taken  from  History,  from  Sacred  Scrip- 
ture, from  Numerous  Authors,  etc. 

We  have  just  been  instancing  a  variety  of  con- 
tradictions in  our  usages,  our  manners,  and  our  laws, 
but  we  have  not  said  enough.  Everything,  particu- 
larly in  Europe,  has  been  made  in  the  same  manner 
as  Harlequin's  habit.  His  master,  when  he  wanted 
to  have  a  dress  made  for  him,  had  not  a  piece  of 
cloth,  and  therefore  took  old  cuttings  of  all  sorts  of 
colors.  Harlequin  was  laughed  at,  but  then  he  was 
clothed. 

The  Germans  are  a  brave  nation,  whom  neither 
the  Germanicuses  nor  the  Trajans  were  ever  able 
completely  to  subjugate.  All  the  German  nations 
that  dwelt  beyond  the  Elbe  were  invincible,  although 
badly  armed ;  and  from  these  gloomy  climes  issued 
forth,  in  part,  the  avengers  of  the  world.  Germany, 
far  from  constituting  the  Roman  Empire,  has  been 
instrumental  in  destroying  it. 

This  empire  had  found  a  refuge  at  Constanti- 
nople, when  a  German — an  Austrasian — went  from 
Aix-la-Chapelle  to  Rome,  to  strip  the  Greek  Caesars 
of  the  remainder  of  their  possessions  in  Italy,  He 
assumed  the  name  of  Csesar  Imperator ;  but  neither 
he  nor  his  successors  even  ventured  to  reside  at 
Rome.  That  capital  could  not  either  boast  or  regret 
that  from  the  time  of  Augustulus,  the  final  excre- 


268  Philosophical 

ment  of  the  genuine  Roman  Empire,  a  single  Caesar 
had  lived  and  been  buried  within  its  walls. 

It  is  difficult  to  suppose  the  empire  can  be  "holy," 
as  it  professes  three  different  religions,  of  which  two 
are  declared  impious,  abominable,  damnable,  and 
damned,  by  the  court  of  Rome,  which  the  whole  im- 
perial court  considers  in  such  cases  to  be  supreme. 
It  is  certainly  not  Roman,  since  the  emperor  has 
not  any  residence  at  Rome. 

In  England  people  wait  upon  the  king  kneeling. 
The  constant  maxim  is,  "The  king  can  do  no 
wrong";  his  ministers  only  can  deserve  blame;  he 
is  as  infallible  in  his  actions  as  the  pope  in  his 
judgments.  Such  is  the  fundamental,  the  "Salic" 
law  of  England.  Yet  the  parliament  sat  in  judg- 
ment on  its  king,  Ec'ward  II.,  who  had  been  van- 
quished and  taken  prisoner  by  his  wife ;  he  was  de- 
clared to  have  done  all  possible  wrong,  and  deprived 
of  all  his  rights  to  the  crown.  Sir  William  Tressel 
went  to  him  in  prison,  and  made  him  the  following 
complimentary  address : 

"I,  William  Tressel,  as  proxy  for  the  parliament 
and  the  whole  English  nation,  revoke  the  homage 
formerly  paid  you ;  I  put  you  to  defiance,  and  de- 
prive you  of  royal  power,  and  from  this  time  forth 
we  will  hold  no  allegiance  to  you." 

The  parliament  tried  and  sentenced  King  Richard 
II.,  grandson  of  the  great  Edward  III.  Thirty-one 
articles  of  accusation  were  brought  against  him, 
among  which  two  are  not  a  little  singular — that  he 


Dictionary.  269 

had  borrowed  money  and  not  repaid  it;  and  that 
he  had  asserted  before  witnesses  that  he  was  master 
of  the  Hves  and  properties  of  his  subjects. 

The  parliament  deposed  Henry  VL,  who,  un- 
doubtedly, was  exceedingly  wrong,  but  in  a  some- 
what different  sense  :  he  was  imbecile. 

The  parliament  declared  Edward  IV.  a  traitor, 
and  confiscated  his  goods;  and  afterwards,  on  his 
being  successful,  restored  him.  As  for  Richard  III., 
he  undoubtedly  committed  more  wrong  than  all  the 
others ;  he  was  a  Nero,  but  a  bold  one ;  and  the 
parliament  did  not  declare  his  wrongs  till  after  he 
was  slain. 

The  House  of  Commons  imputed  to  Charles  I. 
more  wrongs  than  he  was  justly  chargeable  with, 
and  brought  him  to  the  scaffold.  Parliament  voted 
that  James  II.  had  committed  very  gross  and  fla- 
grant wrongs,  and  particularly  that  of  withdrawing 
himself  from  the  kingdom.  It  declared  the  throne 
vacant ;  that  is,  it  deposed  him.  In  the  present  day, 
Junius  writes  to  the  king  of  England  that  he  is 
faulty  in  being  good  and  wise.  If  these  are  not 
contradictions,  I  know  not  where  to  find  them. 

Contradictions  in  Certain  Rites. 

Next  to  those  great  political  contradictions,  which 
are  subdivided  into  innumerable  little  ones,  nothing 
more  forcibly  attracts  our  notice  than  the  contradic- 
tion apparent  in  reference  to  some  of  our  rites.  We 
hate  Judaism.     No  longer  than  fifteen  years  ago 


270  Philosophical 

Jews  were  still  burned  at  the  stake.  We  consider 
them  as  murderers  of  our  God,  and  yet  we  assemble 
every  Sunday  to  chant  Jewish  psalms  and  canticles ; 
it  is  only  owing  to  our  ignorance  of  the  language 
that  we  do  not  recite  them  in  Hebrew.  But  the 
fifteen  first  bishops,  the  priests,  deacons  and  congre- 
gation of  Jerusalem,  which  was  the  cradle  of  the 
Christian  religion,  always  recited  the  Jewish  psalms 
in  the  Jewish  idiom  of  the  Syriac  language ;  and, 
till  the  time  of  the  Caliph  Omar,  almost  all  the  Chris- 
tians, from  Tyre  to  Aleppo,  prayed  in  that  Jewish 
idiom.  At  present  any  one  reciting  the  psalms  as 
they  were  originally  composed,  or  chanting  them  in 
the  Jewish  language,  would  be  suspected  of  being  a 
circumcised  Jew,  and  might  be  burned  as  one ;  at 
least,  not  more  than  twenty  years  since,  that  would 
have  been  his  fate,  although  Jesus  Christ  was  cir- 
cumcised, as  were  also  his  apostles  and  disciples.  I 
set  aside  the  mysterious  doctrines  of  our  holy  re- 
ligion— everything  that  is  an  object  of  faith — every- 
thing that  we  ought  to  approach  only  with  awe  and 
submission.  I  look  only  at  externals  ;  I  refer  simply 
to  observances ;  I  ask  if  anything  was  ever  more 
contradictory  ? 

Contradictions  in  Things  and  Men. 

If  any  literary  society  is  inclined  to  undertake  a 
history  of  contradictions,  I  will  subscribe  for  twenty 
folio  volumes.  The  world  displays  nothing  but'  con- 
tradictions.    What  would  be  necessary  to  put  an 


Dictionary.  271 

end  to  them?  To  assemble  the  states-general  of  the 
human  race.  But,  according  to  the  nature  and  con- 
stitution of  mankind,  it  would  be  a  new  contradic- 
tion were  they  to  agree.  Bring  together  all  the 
rabbits  in  the  world,  and  there  would  not  be  two 
different  minds  among  them. 

I  know  only  two  descriptions  of  immovable 
beings  in  the  world — geometricians  and  brute  ani- 
mals ;  they  are  guided  by  two  invariable  rules — ■ 
demonstration  and  instinct.  Some  disputes,  indeed, 
have  occurred  between  geometricians,  but  brutes 
have  never  varied. 

The  contrasts,  the  lights  and  shades,  in  which 
men  are  represented  in  history,  are  not  contradic- 
tions ;  they  are  faithful  portraits  of  human  nature. 
Every  day  both  censure  and  admiration  are  applied 
to  Alexander,  the  murderer  of  Clitus,  but  the 
avenger  of  Greece  ;  the  conqueror  of  Persia,  and  the 
founder  of  Alexandria ;  to  Caesar,  the  debauchee, 
who  robbed  the  public  treasury  of  Rome  to  enslave 
his  country,  but  whose  clemency  was  equal  to  his 
valor,  and  whose  genius  was  equal  to  his  courage ; 
to  Mahomet,  the  impostor  and  robber,  but  the  only 
legislator  of  religion  that  ever  displayed  courage,  or 
founded  a  great  empire ;  to  the  enthusiast,  Crom- 
well, at  once  knave  and  fanatic,  the  murderer  of  his 
king  by  form  of  law,  but  equally  profound  as  a 
politician,  and  valiant  as  a  warrior.  A  thousand 
contrasts  frequently  present  themselves  at  once  to 
the  mind,  and  these  contrasts  are  in  nature.     They 


272  Philosophical 

are  not  more  astonishing  than  a  fine  day  followed 
by  a  tempest. 

Apparent  Contradictions  in  Books. 

We  must  accurately  distinguish  in  books,  and 
particularly  the  sacred  ones,  between  apparent  and 
real  contradictions.  It  is  said  in  the  Pentateuch 
that  Moses  was  the  meekest  of  men,  and  that  he 
ordered  twenty-three  thousand  Hebrews  to  be  slain 
who  had  worshipped  the  golden  calf,  and  twenty- 
four  thousand  more,  who  had,  like  himself,  married 
Midianitish  women.  But  sagacious  commentators 
have  adduced  solid  proofs  that  Moses  possessed  a 
most  amiable  temper,  and  that  he  only  executed  the 
vengeance  of  God  in  massacring  these  forty-seven 
thousand  Israelites,  as  just  stated. 

Some  daring  critics  have  pretended  to  perceive  a 
contradiction  in  the  narrative  in  which  it  is  said  that 
Moses  changed  all  the  waters  of  Egypt  into  blood, 
and  that  the  magicians  of  Pharaoh  afterwards  per- 
formed the  same  prodigy — the  Book  of  Exodus 
leaving  no  interval  of  time  between  the  miracle  of 
Moses  and  the  magical  operation  of  the  enchanters. 

It  appears,  at  first  view,  impossible  that  these 
magicians  should  change  to  blood  that  which  was 
already  made  such ;  but  the  difficulty  may  be  re- 
moved by  supposing  that  Moses  had  allowed  the 
waters  to  resume  their  original  nature,  in  order  to 
give  Pharaoh  time  for  reflection.  This  supposition 
is  the  more  plausible,  inasmuch  as,  if  not  expressly 
favored  by  the  text,  the  latter  is  not  contrary  to  it. 


Dictionary.  273 

The  same  skeptics  inquire  how,  after  all  the 
horses  were  destroyed  by  hail,  in  the  sixth  plague, 
Pharaoh  was  able  to  pursue  the  Jewish  nation  with 
cavalry.  But  this  contradiction  is  not  even  an  ap- 
parent one,  since  the  hail  which  killed  all  the  horses 
that  were  out  in  the  fields,  could  not  fall  on  those 
which  were  in  the  stables. 

One  of  the  greatest  contradictions  which  has  been 
supposed  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  the  kings  is 
the  utter  scarcity  of  offensive  and  defensive  arms 
among  the  Jews  at  the  time  of  the  accession  of  Saul, 
compared  with  the  army  of  three  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  men,  whom  he  conducted  against  the 
Ammonites  who  were  besieging  Jabesh  Gilead. 

It  is  a  fact  related  that  then,  and  even  after  that 
battle,  there  was  not  a  lance,  not  even  a  single  sword, 
among  the  whole  Hebrew  people ;  that  the  Philis- 
tines prevented  the  Hebrews  from  manufacturing 
swords  and  lances ;  that  the  Hebrews  were  obliged 
to  have  recourse  to  the  Philistines  for  sharpening 
and  repairing  their  plowshares,  mattocks,  axes,  and 
pruning-hooks. 

This  acknowledgment  seems  to  prove  that  the 
Hebrews  consisted  of  only  a  very  small  number,  and 
that  the  Philistines  were  a  powerful  and  victorious 
nation,  who  kept  the  Israelites  under  the  yoke,  and 
treated  them  as  slaves ;  in  short,  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  Saul  to  collect  three  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  fighting  men,  etc. 

The  reverend  Father  Calmet  says  it  is  probable 

Vol.  7—18 


274  Philosophical 

"that  there  is  a  Httle  exaggeration  in  what  is  stated 
about  Saul  and  Jonathan" ;  but  that  learned  man 
forgets  that  the  other  commentators  ascribe  the  first 
victories  of  Saul  and  Jonathan  to  one  of  those  de- 
cided miracles  which  God  so  often  condescended  to 
perform  in  favor  of  his  miserable  people.  Jonathan, 
with  his  armor-bearer  only,  at  the  very  beginning, 
slew  twenty  of  the  enemy ;  and  the  Philistines,  ut- 
terly confounded,  turned  their  arms  against  each 
other.  The  author  of  the  Book  of  Kings  positively 
declares  that  it  was  a  miracle  of  God  :  "Accidit  quasi 
miracuhim  a  Deo."  There  is,  therefore,  no  con- 
tradiction. 

The  enemies  of  the  Christian  religion,  the  Cel- 
suses,  the  Porphyry s,  and  the  Julians,  have  ex- 
hausted the  sagacity  of  their  understandings  upon 
this  subject.  The  Jewish  writers  have  availed  them- 
selves of  all  the  advantages  they  derived  from  their 
superior  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  language  to  ex- 
plain these  apparent  contradictions.  They  have 
been  followed  even  by  Christians,  such  as  Lord  Her- 
bert, Wollaston,  Tindal,  Toland,  Collins,  Shaftes- 
bury, Woolston,  Gordon,  Bolingbroke,  and  many 
others  of  different  nations.  Freret,  perpetual  sec- 
retary of  the  Academy  of  Belles  Lettres  in  France, 
the  learned  Le  Clerc  himself,  and  Simon  of  the  Ora- 
tory thought  they  perceived  some  contradictions 
which  might  be  ascribed  to  the  copyists.  An  im- 
mense number  of  other  critics  have  endeavored  to 


Dictionary.  2.75 

remove  or  correct  contradictions  which  appeared  to 
them  inexplicable. 

We  read  in  a  dangerous  little  book,  composed 
with  much  art:  "St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  give 
each  a  genealogy  of  Christ  different  from  the  other ; 
and  lest  it  should  be  thought  that  the  differences  are 
only  slight,  such  as  might  be  imputed  to  neglect  or 
oversight,  the  contrary  may  easily  be  shown  by  read- 
ing the  first  chapter  of  Matthew  and  the  third  of 
Luke.  We  shall  then  see  that  fifteen  generations 
more  are  enumerated  in  the  one  than  in  the  other ; 
that,  from  David,  they  completely  separate ;  that 
they  join  again  at  Salathiel ;  but  that,  after  his  son, 
they  again  separate,  and  do  not  reunite  again  but  in 
Joseph. 

"In  the  same  genealogy,  St.  Matthew  again  falls 
into  a  manifest  contradiction,  for  he  says  that  Uzziah 
was  the  father  of  Jotham ;  and  in  the  "Paralipo- 
mena,"  book  i,  chap,  iii.,  v.  11,  12,  we  find  three 
generations  between  them — Joas,  Amazias,  and 
Azarias — of  whom  Luke,  as  well  as  Matthew,  make 
no  mention.  Further,  this  genealogy  has  nothing  to 
do  with  that  of  Jesus,  since,  according  to  our  creed, 
Joseph  had  had  no  intercourse  with  Mary." 

In  order  to  reply  to  this  objection,  urged  from 
the  time  of  Origen,  and  renewed  from  age  to  age, 
we  must  read  Julius  Africanus.  See  the  two  gene- 
alogies reconciled  in  the  following  table,  as  we  find 
it  in  the  repository  of  ecclesiastical  writers : 


T](> 


Philosophical 


Solomon    and   his 
descendants,    enu- 
merated  by   Saint 
Matthew. 


Mathan,  her  first 
husband. 


Jacob,  son  of  Ma- 
than, the  first  hus- 
band. 


Joseph,  natural 
son  of  Jacob. 


DAVID. 


ESTHER. 


The  wife  of  these 
two  persons  suc- 
cessively, married 
first  to  Heli,  by 
whom  she  had  no 
child,  and  after- 
wards to  Jacob, 
his  brother. 


Nathan  and  his 
descendants,  enu- 
merated by  Saint 
Luke. 


Melchi,  or  rather 
Mathat,  her  sec- 
ond husband. 


Heli. 


Legitimate  son  of 
Heli. 


There  is  another  method  to  reconcile  the  two 
genealogies,  by  St.  Epiphanius.  x\ccording  to  him, 
Jacob  Panther,  descended  from  Solomon,  is  the 
father  of  Joseph  and  of  Cleophas.  Joseph  has  six 
children  by  his  first  wife — James,  Joshua,  Simeon, 
Jude,  Mary,  and  Salome.  He  then  espouses  the 
Virgin  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  the  daughter 
of  Joachim  and  Anne. 

There  are  many  other  methods  of  explaining 
these  two  genealogies.  See  the  "Dissertation"  of 
Father  Calmet,  in  which  he  endeavors  to  reconcile 
St.  Matthew  with  St.  Luke,  on  the  genealogy  of 
Jesus  Christ.  The  same  learned  skeptics,  who  make 
it  their  business  to  compare  dates,  to  explore  books 
and  medals,  to  collate  ancient  authors,  and  to  seek 
for  truth  by  human  skill  and  study,  and  who  lose 
in  their  knowledge  the  simplicity  of  their  faith,  re- 


Dictionary.  277 

proach  St.  Luke  with  contradicting  the  other  evan- 
gehsts,  and  in  being  mistaken  in  what  he  advances 
on  the  subject  of  our  Lord's  birth.  The  author  of 
the  "Analysis  of  the  Christian  Rehgion"  thus 
rashly  expresses  himself  on  the  subject  (p.  23)  : 

"St.  Luke  says  that  Cyrenius  was  the  governor  of 
Syria,  when  Augustus  ordered  the  numbering  of  all 
the  people  of  the  empire.  We  will  show  how  many 
decided  falsehoods  are  contained  in  these  few  words. 
First,  Tacitus  and  Suetonius,  the  most  precise  of 
historians,  say  not  a  single  word  of  the  pretended 
numbering  of  the  whole  empire,  which  certainly 
would  have  been  a  very  singular  event,  since  there 
never  had  been  one  under  any  emperor — at  least,  no 
author  mentions  such  a  case.  Secondly,  Cyrenius 
did  not  arrive  in  Syria  till  ten  years  after  the  time 
fixed  by  St.  Luke ;  it  was  then  governed  by  Quin- 
tilius  Varus,  as  Tertullian  relates,  and  as  is  con- 
firmed by  medals." 

We  contend  that  in  fact  there  never  was  a  num- 
bering of  the  whole  Roman  empire,  but  only  a  cen- 
sus of  Roman  citizens,  according  to  usage ;  although 
it  is  possible  that  the  copyists  may  have  written 
"numbering"  for  "census."  With  regard  to  Cyren- 
ius, whom  the  copyists  have  made  Cirinus,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  he  was  not  governor  of  Syria  at  the  time  of 
the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  governor  being  Quin- 
tilius  Varus ;  but  it  is  very  probable  that  Quintilius 
might  send  into  Judsea  this  same  Cyrenius,  who  ten 
years  after  succeeded  him  in  the  government  of 


ayS  Philosophical 

Syria.  We  cannot  dissemble,  however,  that  this  ex- 
planation still  leaves  some  difficulties. 

In  the  first  place,  the  census  made  under  Au- 
gustus does  not  correspond  in  time  with  the  birth 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Secondly,  the  Jews  were  not  com- 
prised in  that  census.  Joseph  and  his  wife  were 
not  Roman  citizens.  j\Iary,  therefore,  it  is  said, 
being  under  no  necessity,  was  not  likely  to  go  from 
Nazareth,  which  is  at  the  extremity  of  Judaea,  within 
a  few  miles  of  Mount  Tabor,  in  the  midst  of  the 
desert,  to  lie  in  at  Bethlehem,  which  is  eighty  miles 
from  Xazareth. 

But  it  might  easily  happen  that  Cirinus,  or  Cyren- 
ius,  having  been  sent  to  Jerusalem  by  Quintilius 
Varus  to  impose  a  poll-tax,  Joseph  and  Mary  were 
summoned  by  the  magistrate  of  Bethlehem  to  go  and 
pay  the  tax  in  the  town  of  Bethlehem,  the  place  of 
their  birth.  In  this  there  is  nothing  contradictory. 
The  critics  may  endeavor  to  w^eaken  this  solution 
by  representing  that  it  was  Herod  only  who  im- 
posed taxes ;  that  the  Romans  at  that  time  levied 
nothing  on  Judaea ;  that  Augustus  left  Herod  com- 
pletely his  own  master  for  the  tribute  which  that 
Idumean  paid  to  the  empire.  But,  in  an  emergency, 
it  is  not  impossible  to  make  some  arrangement  with 
a  tributary  prince,  and  send  him  an  intendant  to  es- 
tablish in  concert  with  him  the  new  tax. 

We  wall  not  here  say,  like  so  many  others,  that 
copyists  have  committed  many  errors,  and  that  in 


Dictionary.  279 

the  version  we  possess  there  are  to  be  found  more 
than  ten  thousand ;  we  had  rather  say  with  the 
doctors  of  the  Church  and  the  most  enHghtened 
persons,  that  the  Gospels  were  given  us  only  to 
teach  us  to  Hve  hohly,  and  not  to  criticise  learnedly. 
These  pretended  contradictions  produced  a  dread- 
ful impression  on  the  much  lamented  John  Meslier, 
rector  of  Etrepigni  and  But  in  Champagne.  This 
truly  virtuous  and  charitable,  but  at  the  same  time 
melancholy,  man,  being  possessed  of  scarcely  any 
other  books  than  the  Bible  and  some  of  the  fathers, 
read  them  with  a  studiousness  of  attention  that  be- 
came fatal  to  him.  Although  bound  by  the  duties 
of  his  office  to  inculcate  docility  upon  his  flock,  he 
was  not  sufficiently  docile  himself.  He  saw  ap- 
parent contradictions,  and  shut  his  eyes  to  the  means 
suggested  for  reconciling  them.  He  imagined  that 
he  perceived  the  most  frightful  contradictions  be- 
tween Jesus  being  born  a  Jew  and  afterwards  being 
recognized  as  God ;  in  regard  to  that  God  known 
from  the  first  as  the  son  of  Joseph  the  carpenter  and 
the  brother  of  James,  yet  descended  from  an  empy- 
rean which  does  not  exist,  to  destroy  sin  upon  earth 
that  is  still  covered  with  crimes ;  in  regard  to  that 
God,  the  son  of  a  common  artisan  and  a  descendant 
of  David  on  the  side  of  his  father,  who  was  not  in 
fact  his  father ;  between  the  creator  of  all  worlds, 
and  the  descendant  of  the  adulterous  Bathsheba,  the 
prurient  Ruth,   the   incestuous   Tamar,  the  prosti- 


28o  Philosophical 

tute  of  Jericho,  the  wife  of  Abraham,  so  suspiciously 
attractive  to  a  king-  of  Egypt,  and  again  at  the  age 
of  ninety  years  to  a  king  of  Gerar. 

Meslier  expatiates  with  an  impiety  absolutely 
monstrous  on  these  pretended  contradictions,  as 
they  struck  him,  for  which,  however,  he  might  easily 
have  found  an  explanation,  had  he  possessed  only  a 
small  portion  of  docility.  At  length  his  gloom  so 
grew  upon  him  in  his  solitude  that  he  actually  be- 
came horror-stricken  at  that  holy  religion  which  it 
was  his  duty  to  preach  and  love  ;  and,  listening  only 
to  his  seduced  and  wandering  reason,  he  abjured 
Christianity  by  a  will  written  in  his  own  hand,  of 
which  he  left  three  copies  behind  him  at  his  death, 
which  took  place  in  1732.  The  copy  of  this  will  has 
been  often  printed,  and  exhibits,  in  truth,  a  most 
cruel  stumbling-block.  A  clergyman,  who  at  the 
point  of  death,  asks  pardon  of  God  and  his  parish- 
ioners for  having  taught  the  doctrines  of  Christi- 
anity ;  a  charitable  clergyman,  who  holds  Chris- 
tianity in  execration  because  many  who  profess  it 
are  depraved  ;  who  is  shocked  at  the  pomp  and  pride 
of  Rome,  and  exasperated  by  the  difficulties  of  the 
sacred  volume ;  a  clergyman  who  speaks  of  Chris- 
tianity like  Porphyry,  Jamblichus,  Epictetus,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and  Julian !  And  this  just  as  he  is  to  make 
his  appearance  before  God !  How  fatal  a  case  for 
him,  and  for  all  who  may  be  led  astray  by  his  ex- 
ample ! 

Jn  a  similar  manner  the  unfortunate  preacher 


Dictionary.  281 

Antony,  misled  by  the  apparent  contradictions  which 
he  imagined  he  saw  between  the  new  and  the  old 
law,  between  the  cultivated  olive  and  the  wild  olive, 
wretchedly  abandoned  the  Christian  religion  for  the 
Jewish;  and,  more  courageous  than  John  Meslier, 
preferred  death  to  recantation. 

It  is  evident  from  the  will  of  John  Meslier  that 
the  apparent  contradictions  of  the  gospel  were  the 
principal  cause  of  unsettling  the  mind  of  that  un- 
fortunate pastor,  who  was,  in  other  respects,  a  man 
of  the  strictest  virtue,  and  whom  it  is  impossible  to 
think  of  without  compassion.  Meslier  is  deeply  im- 
pressed by  the  two  genealogies,  which  seem  in  direct 
opposition ;  he  had  not  seen  the  method  of  reconcil- 
ing them  ;  he  feels  agitated  and  provoked  to  see  that 
St.  Matthew  makes  the  father  and  mother  of  the 
child  travel  into  Eg3'pt,  after  having  received  the 
homage  of  the  three  eastern  magi  or  kings,  and  while 
old  King  Herod,  under  the  apprehension  of  being 
dethroned  by  an  infant  just  born  at  Bethlehem, 
causes  the  slaughter  of  all  the  infants  in  the  country, 
in  order  to  prevent  such  a  revolution.  He  is  aston- 
ished that  neither  St.  Luke,  nor  St.  Mark,  nor  St. 
John  make  any  mention  of  this  massacre.  He  is  con- 
founded at  observing  that  St.  Luke  makes  Joseph, 
and  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary,  and  Jesus  our  Saviour, 
remain  at  Bethlehem,  after  which  they  withdraw  to 
Nazareth.  He  should  have  seen  that  the  Holy 
Father  might  at  first  go  into  Egypt,  and  some  time 
afterwards  to  Nazareth,  which  was  their  country. 


282  Philosophical 

If  St.  Matthew  alone  makes  mention  of  the  three 
magi,  and  of  the  star  which  guided  them  to  Bethle- 
hem from  the  remote  climes  of  the  East,  and  of  the 
massacre  of  the  children ;  if  the  other  evangelists 
take  no  notice  of  these  events,  they  do  not  contradict 
St.  Matthew  ;  silence  is  not  contradiction. 

If  the  three  first  evangelists — St.  Matthew,  St. 
Mark,  and  St.  Luke — make  Jesus  Christ  to  have 
lived  but  three  months  from  his  baptism  in  Galilee 
till  his  crucifixion  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  if  St.  John  ex- 
tends that  time  to  three  years  and  three  months,  it 
is  easy  to  approximate  St.  John  to  the  other  evan- 
gelists, as  he  does  not  expressly  state  that  Jesus 
Christ  preached  in  Galilee  for  three  years  and  three 
months,  but  only  leaves  it  to  be  inferred  from  his 
narrative.  Should  a  man  renounce  his  religion  upon 
simple  inferences,  upon  points  of  controversy,  upon 
difficulties  in  chronology? 

It  is  impossible,  says  Meslier,  to  harmonize  St. 
Mark  and  St.  Luke ;  since  the  first  says  that  Jesus, 
when  he  left  the  wilderness,  went  to  Capernaum, 
and  the  second  that  he  went  to  Nazareth.  St.  John 
says  that  Andrew  was  the  first  who  became  a  fol- 
lower of  Jesus  Christ ;  the  three  other  evangelists 
say  that  it  was  Simon  Peter. 

He  pretends,  also,  that  they  contradict  each  other 
with  respect  to  the  day  when  Jesus  celebrated  the 
Passover,  the  hour  and  place  of  His  execution,  the 
time  of  His  appearance  and  resurrection.  He 
is  convinced  that  books  which  contradict  each  other 


Dictionary.  283 

cannot  be  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit ;  but  it  is  not 
an  article  of  faith  to  believe  that  the  Holy  Spirit  in- 
spired every  syllable ;  it  did  not  guide  the  hand  of 
the  copyist ;  it  permitted  the  operation  of  secondary 
causes ;  it  was  sufficient  that  it  condescended  to  re- 
veal the  principal  mysteries,  and  that  in  the  course 
of  time  it  instituted  a  church  for  explaining  them. 
All  those  contradictions,  with  which  the  gospels  have 
been  so  often  and  so  bitterly  reproached,  are  ex- 
plained by  sagacious  commentators  ;  far  from  being 
injurious,  they  mutually  clear  up  each  other ;  they 
present  reciprocal  helps  in  the  concordances  and 
harmony  of  the  four  gospels. 

And  if  there  are  many  difficulties  which  we  can- 
not solve,  mysteries  which  we  cannot  comprehend, 
adventures  which  we  cannot  credit,  prodigies  which 
shock  the  weakness  of  the  human  understanding, 
and  contradictions  which  it  is  impossible  to  recon- 
cile, it  is  in  order  to  exercise  our  faith  and  to  humil- 
iate our  reason. 

Contradictions    in    Judgments    Upon     Works    of 
Literature  or  Art. 

I  have  sometimes  heard  it  said  of  a  good  judge 
on  these  subjects,  and  of  exquisite  taste,  that  man 
decides  according  to  mere  caprice.  He  yesterday 
described  Poussin  as  an  admirable  painter ;  to-day 
he  represents  him  as  an  ordinary  one.  The  fact  is, 
that  Poussin  has  merited  both  praise  and  censure. 

There  is  no  contradiction  in  being  enraptured  by 


284  Philosophical 

the  delicious  scenes  of  the  Horatii  and  Curiatii,  of 
the  Cid,  of  Augustus  and  of  Cinna,  and  afterwards 
in  seeing,  with  disgust  and  indignation,  fifteen  trage- 
dies in  succession,  containing  no  interest,  no  beauty, 
and  not  even  written  in  French. 

It  is  the  author  himself  who  is  contradictory.  It 
is  he  who  has  the  misfortune  to  differ  entirely  from 
himself.  The  critic  would  contradict  himself,  if  he 
equally  applauded  what  is  excellent  and  detestable. 
He  will  admire  in  Homer  the  description  of  the 
girdle  of  Venus;  the  parting  of  Hector  and  An- 
dromache; the  interview  between  Achilles  and 
Priam.  But  will  he  equally  applaud  those  passages 
which  describe  the  gods  as  abusing  and  fighting  with 
one  another;  the  uniformity  in  battles  which  decide 
nothing;  the  brutal  ferocity  of  the  heroes,  and  the 
avarice  by  which  they  are  almost  all  actuated ;  in 
short,  a  poem  which  terminates  with  a  truce  of 
eleven  days,  unquestionably  exciting  an  expectation 
of  the  continuation  of  the  war  and  the  taking  of 
Troy,  which,  however,  are  not  related  ? 

A  good  critic  will  frequently  pass  from  approba- 
tion to  censure,  however  excellent  the  work  may  be 
which  he  is  perusing. 

CONTRAST. 

Contrast,  opposition  of  figures,  situations,  for- 
tune, manners,  etc.  A  modest  shepherdess  forms  a 
beautiful  contrast  in  a  painting  with  a  haughty 
princess.     The  part  of  the   impostor  and  that  of 


Dictionary.  285 

Aristes  constitute  a  very  admirable  contrast  in  "Tar- 
tuffe." 

The  little  may  contrast  with  the  great  in  paint- 
ing, but  cannot  be  said  to  be  contrary  to  it.  Opposi- 
tion of  colors  contrasts ;  but  there  are  also  colors 
contrary  to  each  other ;  that  is,  which  produce  an 
ill  effect  because  they  shock  the  eye  when  brought 
very  near  it. 

"Contradictory"  is  a  term  to  be  used  only  in 
logic.  It  is  contradictory  for  anything  to  be  and  not 
to  be ;  to  be  in  many  places  at  once ;  to  be  of  a  cer- 
tain number  or  size,  and  not  to  be  so.  An  opinion, 
a  discourse,  or  a  decree,  we  may  call  contradictory. 
The  different  fortunes  of  Charles  XII.  have  been 
contrary,  but  not  contradictory ;  they  form  in  his- 
tory a  beautiful  contrast. 

It  is  a  striking  contrast — and  the  two  things  are 
perfectly  contrary — but  it  is  not  contradictory,  that 
the  pope  should  be  worshipped  in  Rome,  and  burned 
in  London  on  the  same  day ;  that  while  he  was 
called  God's  vicegerent  in  Italy,  he  should  be  repre- 
sented in  the  streets  of  Moscow  as  a  hog,  for  the 
amusement  of  Peter  the  Great. 

Mahomet,  stationed  at  the  right  hand  of  God  over 
half  the  globe,  and  damned  over  the  other  half,  is 
the  greatest  of  contrasts.  Travel  far  from  your  own 
country,  and  everything  will  be  contrast  for  you. 
The  white  man  who  first  saw  a  negro  was  much 
astonished ;  but  the  first  who  said  that  the  negro 
was  the  offspring  of  a  white  pair  astonishes  me  much 


286  Philosophical 

more ;  I  do  not  agree  with  him.  A  painter  who  rep- 
resents white  men,  negroes,  and  olive-colored  peo- 
ple, may  display  fine  contrasts. 

CONVULSIONARIES. 

About  the  year  1724  the  cemetery  of  St.  Medard 

abounded  in  amusement,  and  many  miracles  were 

performed  there.    The   following  epigram  by   the 

duchess  of  Maine  gives  a  tolerable  account  of  the 

character  of  most  of  them  : 

Un  decrotteur  a  la  Royale, 
Du  talon  gauche  estropie, 
Obti7it,  pour  grace  speciale. 
D'etre  tortueux  de  I  'autre  pied. 

A  Port-Royal  shoe-black,  who  had  one  lame  leg, 
To  make  both  alike  the  Lord's  favor  did  beg; 
Heaven  listened,  and  straightway  a  miracle  came. 
For  quickly  he  rose  up,  with  both  his  legs  lame. 

The  miracles  continued,  as  is  well  known,  until 

a  guard  was  stationed  at  the  cemetery. 

De  par  le  roi,  defense  a  Diett 
De  faire  miracles  en  ce  lieti. 

Louis  to  God: — To  keep  the  peace. 
Here  miracles  must  henceforth  cease. 

It  is  also  well  known  that  the  Jesuits,  being  no 
longer  able  to  perform  similar  miracles,  in  conse- 
quence of  Xavier  having  exhausted  their  stock  of 
grace  and  miraculous  power,  by  resuscitating  nine 
dead  persons  at  one  time,  resolved  in  order  to  coun- 
teract the  credit  of  the  Jansenists,  to  engrave  a  print 
of  Jesus  Christ  dressed  as  a  Jesuit.  The  Jansenists, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  order  to  give  a  satisfactory 
proof  that  Jesus  Christ  had  not  assumed  the  habit  of 


Dictionary.  287 

a  Jesuit,  filled  Paris  with  convulsions,  and  attracted 
great  crowds  of  people  to  witness  them.  The  coun- 
sellor of  parliament,  Carre  de  Montgeron,  went  to 
present  to  the  king  a  quarto  collection  of  all  these 
miracles,  attested  by  a  thousand  witnesses.  He  was 
very  properly  shut  up  in  a  chateau,  where  attempts 
were  made  to  restore  his  senses  by  regimen ;  but 
truth  always  prevails  over  persecution,  and  the 
miracles  lasted  for  thirty  years  together,  without  in- 
terruption. Sister  Rose,  Sister  Illuminee,  and  the 
sisters  Promise  and  Comfitte,  were  scourged  with 
great  energy,  without,  however,  exhibiting  any  ap- 
pearance of  the  whipping  next  day.  They  were 
bastinadoed  on  their  stomachs  without  injury,  and 
placed  before  a  large  fire ;  but,  being  defended  by 
certain  pomades  and  preparations,  were  not  burned. 
At  length,  as  every  art  is  constantly  advancing  to- 
wards perfection,  their  persecutors  concluded  with 
actually  thrusting  swords  through  their  chairs,  and 
with  crucifying  them.  A  famous  schoolmaster  had 
also  the  benefit  of  crucifixion  ;  all  which  was  done  to 
convince  the  world  that  a  certain  bull  was  ridiculous, 
a  fact  that  might  have  been  easily  proved  without 
so  much  trouble.  However,  Jesuits  and  Jansenists 
all  united  against  the  "Spirit  of  Laws,"  and  against 
....  and  against  ....  and  against  .... 
and And  after  all  this  we  dare  to  ridi- 
cule Laplanders,  Samoyeds,  and  negroes ! 


288  Philosophical 

CORN. 

They  must  be  skeptics  indeed  who  doubt  that 
pain  comes  from  pants.  But  to  make  bread  we  must 
have  corn.  The  Gauls  had  corn  in  the  time  of 
Caesar;  but  whence  did  they  take  the  word  blef 
It  is  pretended  that  it  is  from  bladnm,  a  word  em- 
ployed in  the  barbarous  Latin  of  the  middle  age  by 
the  Chancellor  Desvignes,  or  De  Erneis,  whose  eyes, 
it  is  said,  were  torn  out  by  order  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II. 

But  the  Latin  words  of  these  barbarous  ages 
were  only  ancient  Cehic  or  Teutonic  words  Latin- 
ized. Bladuni  then  comes  from  our  hlcad,  and  not 
our  hlead  from  bladuni.  The  Italians  call  it  biodo, 
and  the  countries  in  which  the  ancient  Roman 
language  is  preserved,  still  say  blia. 

This  knowledge  is  not  infinitely  useful ;  but  we 
are  curious  to  know  where  the  Gauls  and  Teutons 
found  corn  to  sow?  We  are  told  that  the  Tyrians 
brought  it  into  Spain,  the  Spaniards  into  Gaul,  and 
the  Gauls  into  Germany.  And  where  did  the 
Tyrians  get  this  corn?  Probably  from  the  Greeks, 
in  exchange  for  their  alphabet. 

Who  made  this  present  to  the  Greeks?  It  was 
the  goddess  Ceres,  without  doubt;  and  having 
ascended  to  Ceres,  we  can  scarcely  go  any  higher. 
Ceres  must  have  descended  from  heaven  expressly 
to  give  us  wheat,  rye,  and  barley.  Hov/ever,  as  the 
credit  of  Ceres,  who  gave  corn  to  the  Greeks,  and 


Dictionary.  289 

that  of  Ishet,  or  Isis,  who  gratified  the  Egyptians 
with  it,  are  at  present  very  much  decayed,  we  may 
still  be  said  to  remain  in  uncertainty  as  to  the  origin 
of  corn. 

Sanchoniathon  tells  us  that  Dagon  or  Dagan,  one 
of  the  grandsons  of  Thaut,  had  the  superintendence 
of  the  corn  in  Phcenicia.  Now  his  Thaut  was  near 
the  time  of  our  Jared ;  from  which  it  appears  that 
corn  is  very  ancient,  and  that  it  is  of  the  same  an- 
tiquity as  grass.  Perhaps  this  Dagon  was  the  first 
who  made  bread,  but  that  is  not  demonstrated. 

What  a  strange  thing  that  we  should  know  posi- 
tively that  we  are  obliged  to  Noah  for  wine,  and 
that  we  do  not  know  to  whom  we  owe  the  invention 
of  bread.  And  what  is  still  more  strange,  w'e  are 
still  so  ungrateful  to  Noah  that,  while  we  have  more 
than  two  thousand  songs  in  honor  of  Bacchus,  we 
scarcely  sing  one  in  honor  of  our  benefactor,  Noah. 

A  Jew  assured  me  that  corn  came  without  culti- 
vation in  Mesopotamia,  as  apples,  wild  pears,  chest- 
nuts, and  medlars,  in  the  west.  It  is  as  well  to  be- 
lieve him,  until  we  are  sure  of  the  contrary ;  for  it 
is  necessary  that  corn  should  grow  spontaneously 
somewhere.  It  has  become  the  ordinary  and  indis- 
pensable nourishment  in  the  finest  climates,  and  in 
all  the  north. 

The  great  philosophers  whose  talents  we  estimate 

so  highly,  and  whose  systems  we  do  not  follow, 

have  pretended,  in  the  natural  history  of  the  dog 

(page  195),  that  men  created  corn;  and  that  our 
Vol.  7 — 19 


290  Philosophical 

ancestors,  by  means  of  sowing'  tares  and  cow-grass 
together,  changed  them  into  wheat.  As  these  phi- 
losophers are  not  of  our  opinion  on  shells,  they  will 
permit  us  to  differ  from  them  on  corn.  We  do  not 
think  that  tulips  could  ever  have  been  produced 
from  jasmine.  We  find  that  the  germ  of  corn  is 
quite  different  from  that  of  tares,  and  we  do  not 
believe  in  any  transmutation.  When  it  shall  be 
proved  to  us,  we  will  retract. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  article  "Breadtree,"  that 
in  three-quarters  of  the  earth  bread  is  not  eaten.  It 
is  pretended  that  the  Ethiopians  laughed  at  the 
Egyptians,  who  lived  on  bread.  But  since  corn  is 
our  chief  nourishment,  it  has  become  one  of  the 
greatest  objects  of  commerce  and  politics.  So  much 
has  been  written  on  this  subject,  that  if  a  laborer 
sowed  as  many  pounds  of  wheat  as  we  have  volumes 
on  this  commodity,  he  might  expect  a  more  ample 
harvest,  and  become  richer  than  those  who,  in  their 
painted  and  gilded  saloons,  are  ignorant  of  the  ex- 
cess of  his  oppression  and  misery. 

Egypt  became  the  best  country  in  the  world  for 
wheat  when,  after  several  ages,  which  it  is  difficult 
to  reckon  exactly,  the  inhabitants  found  the  secret 
of  rendering  a  destructive  river — which  had  always 
inundated  the  country,  and  was  only  useful  to  the 
rats,  insects,  reptiles,  and  crocodiles  of  Eg}'pt — serv- 
iceable to  the  fecundity  of  the  soil.  Its  waters, 
mixed  with  a  black  mud,  were  neither  useful  to 
quench  the  thirst  of  the  inhabitants,  nor  for  ablu- 


Dictionary.  291 

tion.  It  must  have  required  a  long  time  and  pro- 
digious labor  to  subdue  the  river,  to  divide  it  into 
canals,  to  found  towns  on  lands  formerly  movable, 
and  to  change  the  caverns  of  the  rocks  into  vast 
buildings. 

All  this  is  more  astonishing  than  the  pyramids ; 
for  being  accomplished,  behold  a  people  sure  of  the 
best  corn  in  the  world,  without  the  necessity  of 
labor !  It  is  the  inhabitant  of  this  country  who 
raises  and  fattens  poultry  superior  to  that  of  Caux, 
who  is  habited  in  the  finest  linen  in  the  most  tem- 
perate climate,  and  who  has  none  of  the  real  wants 
of  other  people. 

Towards  the  year  1750,  the  French  nation,  sur- 
feited with  tragedies,  comedies,  operas,  romances, 
and  romantic  histories — with  moral  reflections  still 
more  romantic,  and  with  theological  disputes  on 
grace  and  on  convulsionaries,  began  to  reason  upon 
corn.  They  even  forgot  the  vine,  in  treating  of 
wheat  and  rye.  Useful  things  were  written  on  agri- 
culture, and  everybody  read  them  except  the  labor- 
ers. The  good  people  imagined,  as  they  walked  out 
of  the  comic  opera,  that  France  had  a  prodigious 
quantity  of  corn  to  sell,  and  the  cry  of  the  nation 
at  last  obtained  of  the  government,  in  1764,  the  lib- 
erty of  exportation. 

Accordingly  they  exported.  The  result  was  ex- 
actly what  it  had  been  in  the  time  of  Henry  IV., 
they  sold  a  little  too  much,  and  a  barren  year  suc- 
ceeding, Mademoiselle  Bernard  was  obliged,  for  the 


292  Philosophical 

second  time,  to  sell  her  necklace  to  get  linen  and 
chemises.  Now  the  complainants  passed  from  one 
extreme  to  the  other,  and  complained  against  the 
exportation  that  they  had  so  recently  demanded, 
which  shows  how  difficult  it  is  to  please  all  the  world 
and  his  wife. 

Able  and  well-meaning  people,  without  interest, 
have  written,  with  as  much  sagacity  as  courage,  in 
favor  of  the  unlimited  liberty  of  the  commerce  in 
grain.  Others,  of  as  much  mind,  and  with  equally 
pure  views,  have  written  in  the  idea  of  limiting  this 
liberty ;  and  the  Neapolitan  Abbe  Gagliana  amused 
the  French  nation  on  the  exportation  of  corn,  by 
finding  out  the  secret  of  making,  even  in  French, 
dialogues  as  amusing  as  our  best  romances,  and  a*; 
instructive  as  our  good  serious  books.  If  this  work 
did  not  diminish  the  price  of  bread,  it  gave  great 
pleasure  to  the  nation,  which  was  what  it  valued 
most.  The  partisans  of  unlimited  exportation  an  ■ 
swered  him  smartly.  The  result  was  that  the 
readers  no  longer  knew  where  they  were,  and  the 
greater  part  took  to  reading  romances,  expecting 
that  the  three  or  four  following  years  of  abundance 
would  enable  them  to  judge.  The  ladies  were  no 
longer  able  to  distinguish  wheat  from  rye,  while 
honest  devotees  continued  to  believe  that  grain  must 
lie  and  rot  in  the  ground  in  order  to  spring  up 
again. 


Dictionary.  293 

COUNCILS. 

Meetings  of  Ecclesiastics,  Called  Together  to  Re- 
solve Doubts  or  Questions  on  Points  of  Faith  or 
Discipline. 

The  use  of  councils  was  not  unknown  to  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  ancient  religion  of  Zerdusht,  whom  we 
call  Zoroaster.  About  the  year  200  of  our  era, 
Ardeshir  Babecan,  king  of  Persia,  called  together 
forty  thousand  priests,  to  consult  them  touching 
some  of  his  doubts  about  paradise  and  hell,  which 
they  call  the  gehen — a  term  adopted  by  the  Jews 
during  their  captivity  at  Babylon,  as  they  did  the 
names  of  the  angels  and  of  the  months.  Erdoviraph, 
the  most  celebrated  of  the  magi,  having  drunk  three 
glasses  of  a  soporific  wine,  had  an  ecstasy  which 
lasted  seven  days  and  seven  nights,  during  which  his 
soul  was  transported  to  God.  When  the  paroxysm 
was  over,  he  reassured  the  faith  of  the  king,  by 
relating  to  him  the  great  many  wonderful  things 
he  had  seen  in  the  other  world,  and  having  them 
written  down. 

We  know  that  Jesus  was  called  Christ,  a  Greek 
word  signifying  anointed;  and  his  doctrine  Chris- 
tianity, or  gospel,  i.  e.,  good  news,  because  having, 
as  was  his  custom,  entered  one  Sabbath  day  the 
synagogue  of  Nazareth,  where  he  was  brought  up. 
He  applied  to  Himself  this  passage  of  Isaiah,  which 
He  had  just  read:  ''The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  on 
me,  because  He  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  the 


294  Philosophical 

gospel  to  the  poor."  They  of  the  synagogue  did, 
to  be  sure,  drive  Him  out  of  their  town,  and  carry 
Him  to  a  point  of  the  hill,  on  which  it  was  built,  in 
order  to  throw  Him  headlong  from  it;  and  His 
relatives  "went  out  to  lay  hold  on  Him,"  for  they 
were  told,  and  they  said,  "that  He  was  beside  Him- 
self." Nor  is  it  less  certain  that  Jesus  constantly 
declared  He  had  come  not  to  destroy  the  law  or  the 
prophecies,  but  to  fulfil  them. 

But,  as  He  left  nothing  written,  His  first  disciples 
were  divided  on  the  famous  question,  whether  the 
Gentiles  were  to  be  circumcised  and  ordered  to  keep 
the  Mosaic  law.  The  apostles  and  the  priests,  there- 
fore, assembled  at  Jerusalem  to  examine  this  point, 
and,  after  many  conferences,  they  wrote  to  the 
brethren  among  the  Gentiles,  at  Antioch,  in  Syria, 
and  in  Cilicia,  a  letter  of  which  we  give  the  sub- 
stance :  "It  has  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  to  us,  not  to  impose  upon  you  any  obligations 
but  those  which  are  necessary,  viz.,  to  abstain  from 
meats  offered  up  to  idols,  from  blood,  from  the 
flesh  of  choked  animals,  and  from  fornication." 

The  decision  of  this  council  did  not  prevent 
Peter,  when  at  Antioch,  from  continuing  to  eat  with 
the  Gentiles,  before  some  of  the  circumcised,  who 
came  from  James,  had  arrived.  But  Paul,  seeing 
that  he  did  not  walk  straight  in  the  path  of  gospel 
truth,  resisted  him  to  the  face,  saying  to  him  before 
them  all,  "If  thou,  being  a  Jew,  livest  after  the 
manner  of  Gentiles,  and  not  as  do  the  Jews,  why 


Dictionary.  295 

compellest  thou  the  Gentiles  to  Hve  as  do  the  Jews?'' 
Indeed  Peter  had  hved  Uke  the  Gentiles  ever  since 
he  had  seen,  in  a  trance,  "heaven  opened,  and  a  cer- 
tain vessel  descending  unto  him,  as  it  had  been  a 
great  sheet,  knit  at  the  four  corners,  and  let  down  to 
the  earth ;  wherein  were  all  manner  of  four-footed 
beasts  of  the  earth,  and  wild  beasts,  and  creeping 
things,  and  fowls  of  the  air.  And  there  came  a  voice 
to  him,  Rise,  Peter,  kill  and  eat." 

Paul,  who  so  loudly  reproved  Peter  for  using 
this  dissimulation  to  make  them  believe  that  he 
still  observed  the  law,  had  himself  recourse  to  a 
similar  feint  at  Jerusalem.  Being  accused  of  teach- 
ing the  Jews  who  w^ere  among  the  Gentiles  to  re- 
nounce Moses,  he  went  and  purified  himself  in  the 
temple  for  seven  days,  in  order  that  all  might  know 
that  what  they  had  heard  of  him  was  false,  and  that 
he  continued  to  observe  the  law ;  this,  too,  was  done 
by  the  advice  of  all  the  priests,  assembled  at  the 
house  of  James — which  priests  were  the  same  who 
had  decided  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  these  obser- 
vations were  unnecessary. 

Councils  were  afterwards  distinguished  into  gen- 
eral and  particular.  Particular  councils  are  of  three 
kinds — national,  convoked  by  the  prince,  the  patri- 
arch, or  the  primate ;  provincial,  assembled  by  the 
metropolitan  or  archbishop ;  and  diocesan,  or  synods 
held  by  each  bishop.  The  following  is  a  decree  of 
one  of  the  councils  held  at  Alacon : 

"Whenever  a  layman  meet  a  priest  or  a  deacon 


296  Philosophical 

on  the  road,  he  shall  offer  him  his  arm ;  if  the  priest 
and  the  layman  are  both  on  horseback,  the  layman 
shall  stop  and  salute  the  priest  reverently ;  and  if 
the  priest  be  on  foot,  and  the  layman  on  horseback, 
the  layman  shall  dismount,  and  shall  not  mount 
again  until  the  ecclesiastic  be  at  a  certain  distance ; 
all  on  pain  of  interdiction  for  as  long  a  time  as  it 
shall  please  the  metropolitan." 

The  list  of  the  councils,  in  Moreri's  "Dictionary," 
occupies  more  than  sixteen  pages,  but  as  authors  are 
not  agreed  concerning  the  number  of  general  coun- 
cils, we  shall  here  confine  ourselves  to  the  results 
of  the  first  eight  that  were  assembled  by  order  of  the 
emperors. 

Two  priests  of  Alexandria,  seeking  to  know 
whether  Jesus  was  God  or  creature,  not  only  did 
the  bishops  and  priests  dispute  but  the  whole  people 
were  divided,  and  the  disorder  arrived  at  such  a 
pitch  that  the  Pagans  ridiculed  Christianity  on  the 
stage.  The  emperor  Constantine  first  wrote  in 
these  terms  to  Bishop  Alexander  and  the  priest 
Arius,  the  authors  of  the  dissension:  "These  ques- 
tions, which  are  unnecessary,  and  spring  only  from 
unprofitable  idleness,  may  be  discussed  in  order  to 
exercise  the  intellect ;  but  they  should  not  be  re- 
peated in  the  hearing  of  the  people.  Being  divided 
on  so  small  a  matter,  it  is  not  just  that  you  should 
govern,  according  to  your  thoughts,  so  great  a  multi- 
tude of  God's  people.  Such  conduct  is  mean  and 
puerile,  unworthy  of  the  priestly  office,  and  of  men 


Dictionary.  297 

of  sense.  I  do  not  say  this  to  compel  you  entirely 
to  agree  on  this  frivolous  question,  whatever  it  is. 
You  may,  with  a  private  difference,  preserve  unity, 
provided  these  subtleties  and  different  opinions  re- 
main secret  in  your  inmost  thoughts." 

The  emperor,  having  learned  that  his  letter  was 
without  effect,  resolved,  by  the  advice  of  the  bishops, 
to  convoke  an  ecumenical  council — i.  e.,  a  council  of 
the  whole  habitable  earth,  and  chose  for  the  place  of 
meeting  the  town  of  Nicaea,  in  Bithynia.  There 
came  thither  two  thousand  and  forty-eight  bishops, 
who,  as  Eutychius  relates,  were  all  of  different  sen- 
timents and  opinions.  This  prince,  having  had  the 
patience  to  hear  them  dispute  on  this  point,  was 
much  surprised  at  finding  among  them  so  little 
unanimity;  and  the  author  of  the  Arabic  preface  to 
this  council  says  that  the  records  of  these  disputes 
amounted  to  forty  volumes. 

This  prodigious  number  of  bishops  will  not  ap- 
pear incredible  when  it  is  recollected  that  Usher, 
quoted  by  Selden,  relates  that  St.  Patrick,  who  lived 
in  the  fifth  century,  founded  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  churches,  and  ordained  the  like  number  of 
bishops ;  which  proves  that  then  each  church  had  its 
bishop,  that  is,  its  overlooker. 

In  the  Council  of  Nice  there  was  read  a  letter 
from  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  containing  manifest 
heresy,  and  discovering  the  cabal  of  Arius's  party. 
In  it  was  said,  among  other  things,  that  if  Jesus 
were  acknowledged  to  be  the  Son  of  God  uncreated. 


298  Philosophical 

He  must  also  be  acknowledged  to  be  consubstantial 
with  the  Father.  Therefore  it  was  that  Athanasius, 
a  deacon  of  Alexandria,  persuaded  the  fathers  to 
dwell  on  the  word  consubstantial,  which  had  been 
rejected  as  improper  by  the  Council  of  Antioch,  held 
ag-ainst  Paul  of  Samosata ;  but  he  took  it  in  a  gross 
sense,  marking  division ;  as  we  say,  that  several 
pieces  of  money  are  of  the  same  metal :  whereas 
the  orthodox  explained  the  term  cons^ibstantial  so 
well,  that  the  emperor  himself  comprehended  that 
it  involved  no  corporeal  idea — signified  no  division 
of  the  absolutely  immaterial  and  spiritual  substance 
of  the  Father — but  was  to  be  understood  in  a 
divine  and  ineffable  sense.  They  moreover  showed 
the  injustice  of  the  Arians  in  rejecting  this  word 
on  pretence  that  it  was  not  in  the  Scriptures — they 
who  employ  so  many  words  which  are  not  there 
to  be  found ;  and  who  say  that  the  Son  of  God  was 
brought  out  of  nothing,  and  had  not  existed  from 
all  eternity. 

Constantine  then  wrote  two  letters  at  the  same 
time,  to  give  publicity  to  the  ordinances  of  the  coun- 
cil, and  make  them  known  to  such  as  had  not  at- 
tended it.  The  first,  addressed  to  the  churches  in 
general,  says,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  question 
of  the  faith  has  been  examined,  and  so  well  cleared 
tip,  that  no  difficulty  remains.  In  the  second,  among 
others,  the  church  of  Alexandria  is  thus  addressed : 
"What  three  hundred  bishops  have  ordained  is  no 
other  than  the  seed  of  the  onlv  Son  of  God  ;  the 


Dictionary.  299 

Holy  Ghost  has  declared  the  will  of  God  throu;>ii 
these  great  men,  whom  he  inspired.  Now,  then,  let 
none  doubt — let  none  dispute,  but  each  one  return 
with  all  his  heart  into  the  way  of  truth." 

The  ecclesiastical  writers  are  not  agreed  as  to 
the  number  of  bishops  who  subscribed  to  the  ordi- 
nances of  this  council.  Eusebius  reckons  only  two 
hundred  and  fifty  ;  Eustathius  of  Antioch,  cited  by 
Theodoret,  two  hundred  and  seventy :  St.  Athan- 
asius,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Solitaries,  three  hundred, 
like  Constantine ;  while,  in  his  letter  to  the  Africans, 
he  speaks  of  three  hundred  and  eighteen.  Yet  these 
four  authors  were  eye-witnesses,  and  worthy  of 
great  faith. 

This  number  318,  which  Pope  St.  Leo  calls  mys- 
terious, has  been  adopted  by  most  of  the  fathers  of 
the  church.  St.  Ambrose  assures  us  that  the  number 
of  318  bishops  was  a  proof  of  the  presence  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  his  Council  of  Xic?ea,  because 
the  cross  designates  three  hundred,  and  the  name  of 
Jesus  eighteen.  St.  Hilary,  in  his  defence  of  the 
word  consubslantial,  approved  in  the  Council  of 
Nice,  though  condemned  fifty-five  years  before  in 
the  Council  of  Antioch,  reasons  thus :  "Eighty 
bishops  rejected  the  word  consiibsfanfial,  but  three 
hundred  and  eighteen  have  received  it.  Now  this 
latter  number  seems  to  me  a  sacred  number,  for  it 
is  that  of  the  men  who  accompanied  Abraham, 
when,  after  his  victory  over  the  impious  kings,  he 
was  blessed  by  him  who  is  the  type  of  the  eternal 


300  Philosophical 

priesthood."  And  Selden  relates  that  Dorotheus, 
metropolitan  of  Monembasis,  said  there  were  pre- 
cisely three  hundred  and  eighteen  fathers  at  this 
council,  because  three  hundred  and  eighteen  years 
had  elapsed  since  the  incarnation.  All  chronologists 
place  this  council  in  the  year  325  of  our  modern  era  ; 
but  Dorotheus  deducts  seven  years,  to  make  his  com- 
parison complete ;  this,  however,  is  a  mere  trifle. 
Besides,  it  was  not  until  the  Council  of  Lestines,  in 
743,  that  the  years  began  to  be  counted  from  the 
incarnation  of  Jesus.  Dionysius  the  Less  had  im- 
agined this  epoch  in  his  solar  cycle  of  the  year  526, 
and  Bede  had  made  use  of  it  in  his  "Ecclesiastical 
History." 

It  will  not  be  a  subject  of  astonishment  that  Con- 
stantine  adopted  the  opinion  of  the  three  hundred 
or  three  hundred  and  eighteen  bishops  who  held  the 
divinity  of  Jesus,  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that 
Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  one  of  the  principal  leaders 
of  the  Arian  party,  had  been  an  accomplice  in  the 
cruelty  of  Licinius,  in  the  massacres  of  the  bishops, 
and  the  persecutions  of  the  Christians.  Of  this  the 
emperor  himself  accuses  him,  in  the  private  letter 
which  he  wrote  to  the  church  of  Nicomedia : 

"He  sent  spies  about  me,"  says  he,  "in  the 
troubles,  and  did  everything  but  take  up  arms  for 
the  tyrant.  I  have  proofs  of  this  from  the  priests 
and  deacons  of  his  train,  whom  I  took.  During  the 
Council  of  Niczea,  with  what  eagerness  and  what 
impudence  he  maintained,  against  the  testimony  of 


Dictionary.  301 

his  conscience,  the  error  exploded  on  every  side! 
repeatedly  imploring  my  protection,  lest,  being  con- 
victed of  so  great  a  crime,  he  should  lose  his  dignity. 
He  shamefully  circumvented  and  took  me  by  sur- 
prise, and  carried  everything  as  he  chose.  Again, 
see  what  has  been  done  but  lately  by  him  and  Theo- 
genes." 

Constantine  here  alludes  to  the  fraud  which  Eu- 
sebius  of  Nicomedia  and  Theogenes  of  Nicsea  re- 
sorted to  in  subscribing.  In  the  word  "omoousios," 
they  inserted  an  iota,  making  it  "omoiousios,"  mean- 
ing of  like  substance ;  whereas  the  first  means  of  the 
same  substance.  We  hereby  see  that  these  bishops 
yielded  to  the  fear  of  being  displaced  or  banished ; 
for  the  emperor  had  threatened  with  exile  such  as 
should  not  subscribe.  The  other  Eusebius,  too, 
bishop  of  Csesarea,  approved  the  word  consubstan- 
tial,  after  condemning  it  the  day  before. 

However,  Theonas  of  Marmarica,  and  Secundus 
of  Ptolemais  continued  obstinately  attached  to 
Arius ;  and,  the  council,  having  condemned  them 
with  him,  Constantine  banished  them,  and  declared 
by  an  edict  that  whosoever  should  be  convicted  of 
concealing  any  of  the  writings  of  Arius  instead  of 
burning  them,  should  be  punished  with  death. 
Three  months  after,  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia  and 
Theogenes  were  likewise  exiled  into  Gaul.  It  is 
said  that,  having  gained  over  the  individual  who, 
by  the  emperor's  order,  kept  the  acts  of  the  council, 
they  had  erased  their  signatures,  and  begun  to  teach 


302  Philosophical 

in  public  that  the  Son  must  not  be  believed  to  be 
consubstantial  with  the  Father. 

Happily,  to  replace  their  signatures  and  preserve 
entire  the  mysterious  number  three  hundred  and 
eighteen,  the  expedient  was  tried  of  laying  the  book, 
in  w^hich  the  acts  were  divided  into  sessions,  on  the 
tomb  of  Chrysanthus  and  Mysonius,  who  had  died 
while  the  council  was  in  session ;  the  night  was 
passed  in  prayer  and  the  next  morning  it  was  found 
that  these  two  bishops  had  signed. 

It  was  by  an  expedient  nearly  similar,  that  the 
fathers  of  the  same  council  distinguished  the  au- 
thentic from  the  apocryphal  books  of  Scripture. 
Having  placed  them  altogether  upon  the  altar,  the 
apocryphal  books  fell  to  the  ground  of  themselves. 

Two  other  councils,  assembled  by  the  emperor 
Constantine,  in  the  year  359,  the  one,  of  upwards 
of  four  hundred  bishops,  at  Rimini,  the  other,  of 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty,  at  Seleucia ;  after 
long  debates,  rejected  the  word  consubstantial,  al- 
ready condemned,  as  we  have  before  said^  by  a 
Council  of  Antioch.  But  these  councils  are  recog- 
nized only  by  the  Socinians. 

The  Nicene  fathers  had  been  so  much  occupied 
with  the  consubstantiality  of  the  Son,  that  they  had 
made  no  mention  of  the  church  in  their  symbol,  but 
contented  themselves  with  saying,  "We  also  believe 
in  the  Holy  Ghost."  This  omission  was  supplied  in 
the  second  general  council,  convoked  at  Constanti- 
nople, in  381,  by  Theodosius.    The  Holy  Ghost  was 


Dictionary.  303 

there  declared  to  be  the  Lord  and  giver  of  Hfe,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  Father,  who  with  the  Father  and 
Son  is  worshipped  and  glorified,  who  spake  by  the 
prophets.  Afterwards  the  Latin  church  would  have 
the  Holy  Ghost  proceed  from  the  Son  also ;  and 
the  "filioque"  was  added  to  the  symbol :  first  in 
Spain,  in  447 ;  then  in  France,  at  the  Council  of 
Lyons,  in  1274;  and  lastly  at  Rome,  notwithstand- 
ing the  complaints  made  by  the  Greeks  against  this 
innovation. 

The  divinity  of  Jesus  being  once  established,  it 
was  natural  to  give  to  his  mother  the  title  of  Mother 
of  God.  However,  Nestorius,  patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, maintained  in  his  sermons  that  this  would 
be  justifying  the  folly  of  the  Pagans,  who  gave 
mothers  to  their  gods.  Theodosius  the  younger, 
to  have  this  great  question  decided,  assembled  the 
third  general  council  at  Ephesus,  in  the  year  431, 
and  in  it  Mary  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  mother 
of  God. 

Another  heresy  of  Nestorius.  likewise  condemned 
at  Ephesus,  was  that  of  admitting  two  persons  in 
Jesus.  Nevertheless,  the  patriarch  Photius  sub- 
sequently acknowledged  two  natures  in  Jesus.  A 
monk  named  Eutyches,  who  had  already  ex- 
claimed loudly  against  Nestorius,  affirmed,  the 
better  to  contradict  them  both,  that  Jesus  had  also 
but  one  nature.  But  this  time  the  monk  was  wrong ; 
although,  in  449,  his  opinion  had  been  maintained  by 
blows  in  a  numerous  council  at  Ephesus.    Eutyches 


304  Philosophical 

was  nevertheless  anathematized,  two  years  after- 
wards, by  the  fourth  general  council,  held  under  the 
emperor  Marcian  at  Chalcedon,  in  which  two  na- 
tures were  assigned  to  Jesus. 

It  was  still  to  be  determined,  with  one  person  and 
two  natures,  how  many  wills  Jesus  was  to  have. 
The  fifth  general  council,  which  in  the  year  553 
quelled,  by  Justinian's  order,  the  contentions  about 
the  doctrine  of  three  bishops,  had  no  leisure  to  set- 
tle this  important  point.  It  was  not  until  the  year 
680  that  the  sixth  general  council,  also  convened  at 
Constantinople  by  Constantine  Pogonatus,  informed 
us  that  Jesus  had  precisely  two  wills.  This  council, 
in  condemning  the  Monothelites,  who  admitted  only 
one,  made  no  exception  from  the  anathema  in  favor 
of  Pope  Honorius  I.,  who,  in  a  letter  given  by  Baro- 
nius,  had  said  to  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople : 

"We  confess  in  Jesus  Christ  one  only  will.  We 
do  not  see  that  either  the  councils  or  the  Scriptures 
authorize  us  to  think  otherwise.  But  whether,  from 
the  works  of  divinity  and  of  humanity  which  are  in 
him,  we  are  to  look  for  two  operations,  is  a  point  of 
little  importance,  and  one  which  I  leave  it  to  (he 
grammarians  to  decide." 

Thus,  in  this  instance,  with  God's  permission, 
the  account  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches 
was  balanced.  As  the  patriarch  Nestorius  had  been 
condemned  for  acknowledging  two  persons  in  Je- 
sus, so  Pope  Honorius  was  now  condemned  for 
admitting  but  one  will  in  Jesus. 


Dictionary.  305 

The  seventh  general  council,  or  the  second  of 
Nice,  was  assembled  in  787,  by  Constantine,  son 
of  Leo  and  Irene,  to  re-establish  the  worship  of 
images.  The  reader  must  know  that  two  Councils 
of  Constantinople,  the  first  in  730,  under  the  em- 
peror Leo,  the  other  twenty-four  years  after,  under 
Constantine  Copronymus,  had  thought  proper  to 
proscribe  images,  conformably  to  the  Mosaic  law 
and  to  the  usage  of  the  early  ages  of  Christianity. 
So,  also,  the  Nicene  decree,  in  which  it  is  said  that 
"whosoever  shall  not  render  service  and  adoration 
to  the  images  of  the  saints  as  to  the  Trinity,  shall 
be  deemed  anathematized,"  at  first  encountered  some 
opposition.  The  bishops  who  introduced  it,  in  a 
Council  of  Constantinople,  held  in  789,  were  turned 
out  by  soldiers.  The  same  decree  was  also  rejected 
with  scorn  by  the  Council  of  Frankfort  in  794,  and 
by  the  Caroline  books,  published  by  order  of 
Charlemagne.  But  the  second  Council  of  Nice  was 
at  length  confirmed  at  Constantinople  under  the  em- 
peror Michael  and  his  mother  Theodora,  in  the  year 
842,  by  a  numerous  council,  which  anathematized 
the  enemies  of  holy  images.  Be  it  here  observed,  it 
was  by  two  women,  the  empresses  Irene  and  Theo- 
dora, that  the  images  were  protected. 

We  pass  on  to  the  eighth  general  council.  Under 
the  emperor  Basilius,  Photius,  ordained  patriarch 
of  Constantinople  in  place  of  Ignatius,  had  the  Latin 
church  condemned  for  the  "filioque"  and  other  prac- 
tices, by  a  council  of  the  year  866:  but  Ignatius 
Vol.  7 — 20 


Jo6  Philosophical 

being  recalled  the  following  year,  another  council 
removed  Photius ;  and  in  the  year  869  the  Latins,  in 
their  turn,  condemned  the  Greek  church  in  what 
they  called  the  eighth  general  council — while  those 
in  the  East  gave  this  name  to  another  council,  which, 
ten  years  after,  annulled  what  the  preceding  one 
had  done,  and  restored  Photius. 

These  four  councils  were  held  at  Constantinople ; 
the  others,  called  general  by  the  Latins,  having  been 
composed  of  the  bishops  of  the  West  only,  the  popes, 
with  the  aid  of  false  decretals,  gradually  arrogated 
the  right  of  convoking  them.  The  last  of  these 
which  assembled  at  Trent,  from  1545  to  1563,  neither 
served  to  convert  the  enemies  of  papacy  nor  to  sub- 
due them.  Its  decrees,  in  discipline,  have  been 
scarcely  admitted  into  any  one  Catholic  nation :  its 
only  effect  has  been  to  verify  these  words  of  St. 
Gregory  Nazianzen :  "I  have  not  seen  one  council 
that  has  acted  with  good  faith,  or  that  has  not  aug- 
mented the  evils  complained  of  rather  than  cured 
them.  Ambition  and  the  love  of  disputation,  beyond 
the  power  of  words  to  express,  reign  in  every  as- 
sembly of  bishops." 

However,  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  141 5,  hav- 
ing decided  that  a  council-general  receives  its  au- 
thority immediately  from  Jesus  Christ,  which  au- 
thority every  person,  of  whatever  rank  or  dignity, 
is  bound  to  obey  in  all  that  concerns  the  faith ;  and 
the  Council  of  Basel  having  afterwards  confirmed 
this  decree,  which  it  holds  to  be  an  article  of  faith 


Dictionary.  307 

which  cannot  be  neglected  without  renouncing  sal- 
vation, it  is  clear  how  deeply  every  one  is  interested 
in  paying  submission  to  councils. 

SECTION    II. 

Notice  of  the  General  Councils. 

Assembly,  council  of  state,  parliament,  states- 
general,  formerly  signified  the  same  thing.  In  the 
primitive  ages  nothing  was  written  in  Celtic,  nor  in 
German,  nor  in  Spanish.  The  little  that  was  writ- 
ten was  conceived  in  the  Latin  tongue  by  a  few 
clerks,  who  expressed  every  meeting  of  lendes,  her- 
r^n,  or  ricohomhres,  by  the  word  concilium.  Hence 
it  is  that  we  find  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth 
centuries  so  many  councils  which  were  nothing  more 
than  councils  of  state. 

We  shall  here  speak  only  of  the  great  councils 
called  general,  whether  by  the  Greek  or  by  the 
Latin  church.  At  Rome  they  were  called  synods, 
as  they  were  in  the  East  in  the  primitive  ages — for 
the  Latins  borrowed  names  as  well  as  things  from 
the  Greeks. 

In  325  there  was  a  great  council  in  the  city  of 
Nicaea,  convoked  by  Constantine.  The  form  of  its 
decision  was  this :  "We  believe  that  Jesus  is  of  one 
substance  with  the  Father,  God  of  God,  light  of 
light,  begotten,  not  made.  We  also  believe  in  the 
Holy  Ghost." 

Nicephorus  affirms  that  two  bishops,  Chrysan- 
thus  and  Mysonius,  who  had  died  during  the  first 


3o8  Philosophical 

sittings,  rose  again  to  sign  the  condemnation  of 
Arius,  and  incontinently  died  again,  as  I  have  al- 
ready observed.  Baronius  maintains  this  fact,  but 
Fleury  says  nothing  of  it. 

In  359  the  emperor  Constantius  assembled  the 
great  councils  of  Rimini  and  of  Seleucia,  consisting 
of  six  hundred  bishops,  with  a  prodigious  number 
of  priests.  These  two  councils,  corresponding  to- 
gether, undo  all  that  the  Council  of  Nice  did,  and 
proscribe  the  consubstantiality.  But  this  was  after- 
wards regarded  as  a  false  council. 

In  381  was  held,  by  order  of  the  emperor  The- 
odosius,  a  great  council  at  Constantinople,  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  bishops,  who  anathematize  the 
Council  of  Rimini.  St.  Gregory  Nazianzen  pre- 
sides, and  the  bishop  of  Rome  sends  deputies  to  it. 
Now  is  added  to  the  Nicene  symbol :  "Jesus  Christ 
was  incarnate,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  of  the  Virgin 
Mary.  He  was  crucified  for  us  under  Pontius  Pi- 
late. He  was  buried,  and  on  the  third  day  he  rose 
?gain,  according  to  the  Scriptures.  He  sits  at  the 
ric,dit  hand  of  the  Father.  We  also  believe  in  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  and  giver  of  life,  who  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Father." 

In  431  a  great  council  was  convoked  at  Ephesus, 
by  the  emperor  Theodosius  II.  Nestorius,  bishop  of 
Constantinople,  having  violently  persecuted  all  who 
were  not  of  his  opinion  on  theological  points,  un- 
dergoes persecution  in  his  turn,  for  having  main- 
tained that  the  Holy  Virgin  Mary,  mother  of  Je- 


Dictionary.  309 

sus  Christ,  was  not  mother  of  God :  because 
said  he,  Jesus  Christ  being  the  word,  the  Son  of 
God,  consubstantial  with  His  Father,  ]\Iary  could 
not,  at  the  same  time,  be  mother  of  God  the  Father 
and  of  God  the  Son.  St.  Cyril  exclaims  loudly 
against  him.  Xestorius  demands  an  ecumenical 
council,  and  obtains  it.  Nestorius  is  condemned ; 
but  Cyril  is  also  displaced  by  a  committee  of  the 
council.  The  emperor  reverses  all  that  has  been 
done  in  this  council,  then  permits  it  to  re-assemble. 
The  deputies  from  Rome  arrive  very  late.  The 
troubles  increasing,  the  emperor  has  Nestorius  and 
Cyril  arrested.  At  last  he  orders  all  the  bishops 
to  return,  each  to  his  church,  and  after  all  no  con- 
clusion is  reached.  Such  was  the  famous  Council  of 
Ephesus. 

In  449  another  great  council,  afterward  called 
"the  banditti,"  met  at  Ephesus.  The  number  of 
bishops  assembled  is  a  hundred  and  thirty ;  and 
Dioscorus,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  presided.  There 
are  two  deputies  from  the  church  of  Rome,  and  sev- 
eral abbots.  The  question  is,  whether  Jesus  Christ 
has  two  natures.  The  bishops  and  all  the  monks  of 
Egypt  exclaim  that  "all  who  would  divide  Jesus 
Christ  ought  themselves  to  be  torn  in  two."  The 
two  natures  are  anathematized ;  and  there  is  a  fight 
in  full  council,  as  at  the  little  Council  of  Cirta  in 
355,  and  at  the  minor  Council  of  Carthage. 

In  452,  the  great  Council  of  Chalcedon  was  con- 
voked bv  Pulcheria,  who  married  Alarcian  on  con- 


3IO  Philosophical 

dition  that  he  should  be  only  the  highest  of  her  sub- 
jects. St.  Leo,  bishop  of  Rome,  having  great  in- 
fluence, takes  advantage  of  the  troubles  which  the 
quarrel  about  the  two  natures  has  occasioned  in  the 
empire,  and  presides  at  the  council  by  his  legates — 
of  which  we  have  no  former  example.  But  the 
fathers  of  the  council,  apprehending  that  the  church 
of  the  West  will,  from  this  precedent,  pretend  to  the 
superiority  over  that  of  the  East,  decide  by  their 
twenty-eighth  canon,  that  the  see  of  Constantinople, 
and  that  of  Rome,  shall  enjoy  alike  the  same  ad- 
vantages and  the  same  privileges.  This  was  the 
origin  of  the  long  enmity  which  prevailed,  and  still 
prevails,  between  the  two  churches.  This  Council 
of  Chalcedon  established  the  two  natures  in  one 
only  person. 

Nicephorus  relates  that,  at  this,  same  council, 
the  bishops,  after  a  long  dispute  on  the  subject  of 
images,  laid  each  his  opinion  in  writing  on  the  tomb 
of  St.  Euphemia,  and  passed  the  night  in  prayer. 
The  next  morning  the  orthodox  writings  were  found 
in  the  saint's  hand,  and  the  others  at  her  feet. 

In  553,  a  great  council  at  Constantinople  was 
convoked  by  Justinian,  who  was  an  amateur  theo- 
logian, to  discuss  three  small  writings,  called  the 
three  chapters,  of  which  nothing  is  now  known. 
There  were  also  disputes  on  some  passages  of 
Origen. 

Vigilius, bishop  of  Rome,  would  have  gone  thither 
in  person ;    but  Justinian  had  him  put  in  prison, 


Dictionary.  3 1 1 

and  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  presided.  No 
member  of  the  Latin  church  attended;  for  at  that 
time  Greek  was  no  longer  understood  in  the  West, 
which  had  become  entirely  barbarous. 

In  680,  another  general  council  at  Constantino- 
ple was  convoked  by  Constantine  the  bearded.  This 
was  the  first  council  called  by  the  Latins  in  trullo, 
because  it  was  held  in  an  apartment  of  the  imperial 
palace.  The  emperor,  himself,  presided ;  on  his 
right  hand  were  the  patriarchs  of  Constantinople 
and  Antioch ;  on  his  left,  the  deputies  from  Rome 
and  Jerusalem.  It  was  there  decided  that  Jesus 
Christ  had  two  wills ;  and  Pope  Honorius  I.,  was 
condemned  as  a  Monothelite,  i.  e.,  as  wishing  Jesus 
Christ  to  have  but  one  will 

In  787,  the  second  Council  of  Nice  was  convoked 
by  Irene,  in  the  name  of  the  emperor  Constantine, 
her  son,  whom  she  had  deprived  of  his  eyes.  Her 
husband,  Leo,  had  abolished  the  worship  of  im- 
ages, as  contrary  to  the  simplicity  of  the  primitive 
ages,  and  leading  to  idolatry.  Irene  re-established 
this  worship ;  she  herself  spoke  in  the  council, 
which  was  the  only  one  held  by  a  woman.  Two 
legates  from  Pope  Adrian  V.,  attended,  but  did  not 
speak,  for  they  did  not  understand  Greek:  the  pa- 
triarch did  all. 

Seven  years  after,  the  Franks,  having  heard  that 
a  council  at  Constantinople  had  ordained  the  adora- 
tion of  images,  assemble,  by  order  of  Charles,  son 
of  Pepin,  afterwards  named  Charlemagne,  a  very 


312  Philosophical 

numerous  council  at  Frankfort.  Here  the  second 
Council  of  Nice  is  spoken  of  as  "an  impertinent 
and  arrogant  synod,  held  in  Greece  for  the  worship- 
ping of  pictures." 

In  842,  a  great  council  at  Constantinople  was 
convoked  by  the  empress  Theodora.  The  worship 
of  images  was  solemnly  established.  The  Greeks 
have  still  a  feast  in  honor  of  this  council,  called 
the  orthodoxia.  Theodora  did  not  preside.  In  861, 
a  great  council  at  Constantinople,  consisting  of 
three  hundred  and  eighteen  bishops,  was  convoked 
by  the  emperor  Michael.  St.  Ignatius,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  is  deposed,  and  Photius  elected. 

In  866,  another  great  council  was  held  at  Con- 
stantinople, in  which  Pope  Nicholas  III.  is  deposed 
for  contumacy,  and  excommunicated.  In  869  was 
another  great  council  at  Constantinople,  in  which 
Photius,  in  turn,  is  deposed  and  excommunicated, 
and  St.  Ignatius  restored. 

In  879,  another  great  council  assembled  at  Con- 
stantinople, in  which  Photius,  already  restored,  is 
acknowledged  as  true  patriarch  by  the  legates  of 
Pope  John  VIII.  Here  the  great  ecumenical  coun- 
cil, in  which  Photius  was  deposed,  receives  the  ap- 
pellation of  "conciliabulmn."  Pope  John  VIII.  de- 
clares all  those  to  be  Judases  who  say  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

In  1 122-3,  ^  great  council  at  Rome  was  held  in 
the  church  of  St.  John  of  Lateran  by  Pope  Calixtus 
II.    This  was  the  first  general  council  convoked  by 


Dictionary.  313 

the  popes.  The  emperors  of  the  West  had  now 
scarcely  any  authority ;  and  the  emperors  of  the 
East,  pressed  by  the  Mahometans  and  by  the  Crusa- 
ders, held  none  but  wretched  little  councils. 

It  is  not  precisely  known  what  this  Lateran  was. 
Some  small  councils  had  before  been  assembled  in 
the  Lateran.  Some  say  that  it  was  a  house  built  by 
one  Lateran  in  Nero's  time ;  others,  that  it  was  St. 
John's  church  itself,  built  by  Bishop  Sylvester.  In 
this  council,  the  bishops  complained  heavily  of  the 
monks.  "They  possess,"  said  they,  "the  churches, 
the  lands,  the  castles,  the  tithes,  the  offerings  of  the 
living  and  the  dead ;  they  have  only  to  take  from 
us  the  ring  and  the  crosier."  The  monks  remained 
in  possession. 

In  1 139  was  another  great  Council  of  Lateran,  by 
Pope  Innocent  II.  It  is  said  there  were  present  a 
thousand  bishops.  A  great  many,  certainly.  Here 
the  ecclesiastical  tithes  are  declared  to  be  of  divine 
right,  and  all  laymen  possessing  an}^  of  them  are 
excommunicated.  In  1179  was  another  great  Coun- 
cil of  Lateran,  by  Pope  Alexander  III.  There  were 
three  hundred  bishops  and  one  Greek  abbot.  The 
decrees  are  all  on  discipline.  The  plurality  of  bene- 
fices is  forbidden. 

In  1215  was  the  last  general  Council  of  Lateran, 
by  Pope  Innocent  III.,  composed  of  four  hundred 
and  twelve  bishops,  and  eight  hundred  abbots.  At 
this  time,  which  is  that  of  the  Crusades,  the  popes 
have  established  a  Latin  patriarch  at  Jerusalem,  and 


314  Philosophical 

one  at  Constantinople.  These  patriarchs  attend  the 
council.  This  great  council  says  that,  "God  hav- 
ing given  the  doctrine  of  salvation  to  men  by  Moses, 
at  length  caused  His  son  to  be  born  of  a  virgin,  ta 
show  the  way  more  clearly,"  and  that  "no  one  can 
be  saved  out  of  the  Catholic  church." 

The  transuhstantiation  was  not  known  until  aftei 
this  council.  It  forbade  the  establishment  of  new 
religious  orders ;  but,  since  that  time,  no  less  than 
eighty  have  been  instituted.  It  was  in  this  council 
that  Raymond,  count  of  Toulouse,  was  stripped  of 
all  his  lands.  In  1245  a  great  council  assembled  at 
the  imperial  city  of  Lyons.  Innocent  IV.  brings 
thither  the  emperor  of  Constantinople,  John  Palaeol- 
ogus,  and  makes  him  sit  beside  him.  He  deposes 
the  emperor  Frederick  as  a  felon,  and  gives  the  car- 
dinals red  hats,  as  a  sign  of  hostility  to  Frederick. 
This  was  the  source  of  thirty  years  of  civil  war. 

In  1274  another  general  council  was  held  at  Ly- 
ons. Five  hundred  bishops,  seventy  great  and  a 
thousand  lesser  abbots.  The  Greek  emperor,  Ali- 
chael  Palseologus,  that  he  may  have  the  protection  of 
the  pope,  sends  his  Greek  patriarch,  Theophanes,  to 
unite,  in  his  name,  with  the  Latin  church.  But  the 
Greek  church  disowns  these  bishops. 

In  131 1,  Pope  Clement  V.  assembled  a  general 
council  in  the  small  town  of  Vienne,  in  Dauphiny,  in 
which  he  abolishes  the  Order  of  the  Templars.  It 
is  here  ordained  that  the  Begares,  Beguins,  and  Be- 
guines  shall  be  burned.     These  were  a  species  of 


Dictionary.  315 

heretics,  to  whom  was  imputed  all  that  had  formerly 
been  imputed  to  the  primitive  Christians.  In  1414, 
the  great  Council  of  Constance  was  convoked  by  an 
emperor  who  resumes  his  rights,  viz. :  by  Sigis- 
mund.  Here  Pope  John  XXIII. ,  convicted  of  nu- 
merous crimes,  is  deposed ;  and  John  Huss  and  Je- 
rome of  Prague,  convicted  of  obstinacy,  are  burned. 
In  143 1,  a  great  council  was  held  at  Basel,  where 
they  in  vain  depose  Pope  Eugene  IV,,  who  is  too 
clever  for  the  council. 

In  1438,  a  great  council  assembled  at  Ferrara, 
transferred  to  Florence,  where  the  excommunicated 
pope  excommunicates  the  council,  and  declares  it 
guilty  of  high  treason.  Here  a  feigned  union  is 
made  with  the  Greek  church,  crushed  by  the  Turk- 
ish synods  held  sword  in  hand.  Pope  Julius  II. 
would  have  had  his  Council  of  Lateran,  in  15 12, 
pass  for  an  ecumenical  council.  In  it  that  pope  sol- 
emnly excommunicated  Louis  XII.,  king  of  France, 
laid  France  under  an  interdict,  summoned  the  whole 
parliament  of  Provence  to  appear  before  him,  and 
excommunicated  all  the  philosophers,  because  most 
of  them  had  taken  part  with  Louis  XII.  Yet  this 
council  was  not,  like  that  of  Ephesus,  called  the 
Council  of  Robbers. 

In  1537,  the  Council  of  Trent  was  convoked, 
first  at  Mantua,  by  Paul  III.,  afterwards  at  Trent 
in  1543,  and  terminated  in  December,  1561,  under 
Pius  VI.  Catholic  princes  submitted  to  it  on  points 
of  doctrine,  and  two  or  three  of  them  in  matters  of 


3i6  Philosophical 

discipline.  It  is  thought  that  henceforward  there 
will  be  no  more  general  councils  than  there  will  be 
states-general  in  France  or  Spain.  In  the  Vatican 
there  is  a  fine  picture,  containing  a  list  of  the  gen- 
eral councils,  in  which  are  inscribed  such  only  as 
are  approved  by  the  court  of  Rome.  Every  one 
puts  what  he  chooses  in  his  own  archives. 

SECTION    III. 

Infallibility  of  Councils. 

All  councils  are,  doubtless,  infallible,  being  com.- 
posed  of  men.  It  is  not  possible  that  the  passions, 
that  intrigues,  that  the  spirit  of  contention,  that  ha- 
tred or  jealousy,  that  prejudice  or  ignorance,  should 
ever  influence  these  assemblies.  But  why,  it  will 
be  said,  have  so  many  councils  been  opposed  to  one 
another?  To  exercise  our  faith.  They  were  all 
right,  each  in  its  time.  At  this  day,  the  Roman 
Catholics  believe  in  such  councils  only  as  are  ap- 
proved in  the  Vatican ;  the  Greek  Catholics  believe 
only  in  those  approved  at  Constantinople ;  and  the 
Protestants  make  a  jest  of  both  the  one  and  the 
other :  so  that  every  one  ought  to  be  content. 

We  shall  here  examine  only  the  great  councils : 
the  lesser  ones  are  not  worth  the  trouble.  The  first 
was  that  of  Nice,  assembled  in  the  year  325  of  the 
modern  era,  after  Constantine  had  written  and  sent 
by  Osius  his  noble  letter  to  the  rather  turbulent 
clergy  of  Alexandria.  It  was  debated  whether  Je- 
sus was  created  or  uncreated.  This  in  no  way  con- 
cerned morality,  which  is  the  only  thing  essential. 


Dictionary.  317 

Whether  Jesus  was  in  time  or  before  time,  it  is  not 
the  less  our  duty  to  be  honest.  After  much  alter- 
cation, it  was  at  last  decided  that  the  Son  was  as 
old  as  the  Father,  and  consubstantial  with  the 
Father.  This  decision  is  not  very  easy  of  compre- 
hension, which  makes  it  but  the  more  sublime.  Sev- 
enteen bishops  protested  against  the  decree ;  and 
an  old  Alexandrian  chronicle,  preserved  at  Oxford, 
says  that  two  thousand  priests  likewise  protested. 
But  prelates  make  not  much  account  of  mere  priests, 
who  are  in  general  poor.  However,  there  was  noth- 
ing said  of  the  Trinity  in  this  first  council.  Tlie 
formula  runs  thus :  "We  believe  Jesus  to  be  con- 
substantial  with  the  Father,  God  of  God,  light  of 
light,  begotten,  not  made ;  w^e  also  believe  in  the 
Holy  Ghost."  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  was  treated  very  cavalierly. 

We  have  already  said,  that  in  the  supplement  to 
the  Council  of  Nice  it  is  related  that  the  fathers, 
being  much  perplexed  to  find  out  which  were  the 
authentic  and  which  the  apocryphal  books  of  the 
Old  and  the  Xew  Testament,  laid  them  all  upon  an 
altar,  and  the  books  which  they  were  to  reject  fell 
to  the  ground.  What  a  pity  that  so  fine  an  ordeal 
has  been  lost ! 

After  the  first  Council  of  Nice,  composed  of  three 
hundred  and  seventeen  infallible  bishops,  another 
council  was  held  at  Rimini ;  on  which  occasion  the 
number  of  the  infallible  was  four  hundred,  with- 
out  reckoning   a   strong   detachment,   at  Seleucia, 


3 1 8  Philosophical 

of  about  two  hundred.  These  six  hundred  bishops, 
after  four  months  of  contention,  unanimously  took 
from  Jesus  his  consubstantiality.  It  has  since  been 
restored  to  him,  except  by  the  Socinians:  so  noth- 
ing is  amiss. 

One  of  the  great  councils  was  that  of  Ephesus, 
in  431.  There,  as  already  stated,  Nestorius,  bishop 
of  Constantinople,  a  great  persecutor  of  heretics, 
was  himself  condemned  as  a  heretic,  for  having 
maintained  that,  although  Jesus  was  really  God, 
yet  His  mother  was  not  absolutely  mother  of  God, 
but  mother  of  Jesus.  St.  Cyril  procured  the  con- 
demnation of  Nestorius ;  but  the  partisans  of  Nes- 
torius also  procured  the  deposition  of  St.  Cyril,  in 
the  same  council ;  which  put  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
considerable  perplexity. 

Here,  gentle  reader,  carefully  observe,  that  the 
Gospel  says  not  one  syllable  of  the  consubstantiality 
of  the  Word,  nor  of  Mary's  having  had  the  honor 
of  being  mother  of  God,  no  more  than  of  the 
other  disputed  points  which  brought  together  so 
many  infallible  councils. 

Eutyches  was  a  monk,  who  had  cried  out  sturdily 
against  Nestorius,  whose  heresy  was  nothing  less 
than  supposing  two  persons  in  Jesus ;  which  is  quite 
frightful.  The  monk,  the  better  to  contradict  his 
adversary,  afHrmed  that  Jesus  had  but  one  nature. 
One  Flavian,  bishop  of  Constantinople,  maintained 
against  him,  that  there  must  absolutely  be  two  na- 
tures in  Jesus.    Thereupon,  a  numerous  council  was 


Dictionary.  319 

held  at  Ephesus  in  449,  and  the  argument  made  use 
of  was  the  cudgel,  as  in  the  lesser  council  of  Cirta, 
in  355,  and  in  a  certain  conference  held  at  Carthage. 
Flavian's  nature  was  well  thrashed,  and  two  natures 
were  assigned  to  Jesus.  At  the  Council  of  Chalce- 
don,  in  451,  Jesus  was  again  reduced  to  one  nature. 

I  pass  by  councils  held  on  less  weighty  questions, 
and  come  to  the  sixth  general  Council  of  Constanti- 
nople, assembled  to  ascertain  precisely  whether  Je- 
sus— who,  after  having  for  a  long  period  had  but 
one  nature,  was  then  possessed  of  two — had  also  two 
wills.  It  is  obvious  how  important  this  knowledge 
is  to  doing  the  will  of  God. 

This  council  was  convoked  by  Constantine  the 
Bearded,  as  all  the  others  had  been  by  the  preceding 
emperors.  The  legates  from  the  bishop  of  Rome 
were  on  the  left  hand,  and  the  patriarchs  of  Con- 
stantinople and  Antioch  on  the  right.  The  train- 
bearers  at  Rome  may,  for  aught  I  know,  assert  that 
the  left  hand  is  the  place  of  honor.  However,  the 
result  was  that  Jesus  obtained  two  wills. 

The  Mosaic  law  forbade  images.  Painters  and 
sculptors  had  never  made  their  fortunes  among  the 
Jews.  We  do  not  find  that  Jesus  ever  had  any  pic- 
tures, excepting  perhaps  that  of  Mary,  painted  by 
Luke.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  Jesus  Christ  no- 
where recommends  the  worship  of  images.  Never- 
theless the  primitive  Christians  began  to  worship 
them  about  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  when  they 
had  become  familiar  with  the  fine  arts.     In  the 


320  Philosophical 

eighth  century  this  abuse  had  arrived  at  such  a  pitch 
that  Constantine  Copronymus  assembled,  at  Con- 
stantinople, a  council  of  three  hundred  and  twenty 
bishops,  who  anathematized  image-worship,  and  de- 
clared it  to  be  idolatry. 

The  empress  Irene,  the  same  who  afterwards 
had  her  son's  eyes  torn  out,  convoked  the  second 
Council  of  Nice  in  787,  when  the  adoration  of  images 
was  re-established.  But  in  794  Charlemagne  had 
another  council  held  at  Frankfort,  which  declared 
the  second  of  Nice  idolatrous.  Pope  Adrian  IV. 
sent  two  legates  to  it,  but  he  did  not  convoke  it. 

The  first  great  council  convoked  by  a  pope  was 
the  first  of  Lateran,  in  1139;  there  were  about  a 
thousand  bishops  assembled  ;  but  scarcely  anything 
was  done,  except  that  all  those  were  anathemat- 
ized who  said  that  the  Church  was  too  rich.  In  1 179, 
another  great  council  of  Lateran  was  held  by  Alex- 
ander III.,  in  which  the  cardinals,  for  the  first  time, 
took  precedence  of  the  bishops.  The  discussions 
were  confined  to  matters  of  discipline.  In  another 
great  council  of  Lateran,  in  121 5,  Pope  Innocent 
III.  stripped  the  count  of  Toulouse  of  all  his  pos- 
sessions, by  virtue  of  his  excommunication.  It 
was  then  that  the  first  mention  was  made  of  fran- 
subsfantiation. 

In  1245,  was  held  a  general  council  at  Lyons, 
then  an  imperial  city,  in  which  Pope  Innocent  IV. 
excommunicated  the  emperor  Frederick  II.,  and 
consequently  deposed  him,  and  forbade  him  the  use 


Dictionary.  321 

of  fire  and  water.  On  this  occasion,  a  red  iiat  was 
given  to  the  cardinals,  to  remind  them  that  they 
must  imbrue  their  hands  in  the  blood  of  the  em- 
peror's partisans.  This  council  was  the  cause  of 
the  destruction  of  the  house  of  Suabia,  and  of  thirty 
years  of  anarchy  in  Italy  and  Germany. 

In  a  general  council  held  at  Vienne,  in  Dauphiny, 
in  131 1,  the  Order  of  the  Templars  was  abolished: 
its  principal  members  having  been  condemned  to  the 
most  horrible  deaths,  on  charges  most  imperfectly 
established.  The  great  Council  of  Constance,  in 
1414,  contented  itself  with  dismissing  Pope  John 
XXIII.,  convicted  of  a  thousand  crimes,  but  had 
John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague  burned  for  being 
obstinate ;  obstinacy  being  a  much  more  grievous 
crime  than  either  murder,  rape,  simony,  or  sodomy. 
In  1430  was  held  the  great  council  of  Basel,  not 
recognized  at  Rome  because  it  deposed  Pope  Eu- 
genius  IV.,  who  v/ould  not  be  deposed.  The  Ro- 
mans reckon  among  the  general  councils  the  fifth 
Council  of  Lateran,  convoked  against  Louis  XII., 
king  of  France,  by  Pope  Julius  II. ;  but  that  war- 
like pope  dying,  the  council  had  no  result. 

Lastly,  we  have  the  great  Council  of  Trent,  which 
is  not  received  in  France  in  matters  of  discipline ; 
but  its  doctrine  is  indisputable,  since,  as  Fra  Paolo 
Sarpi  tells  us,  the  Holy  Ghost  arrived  at  Trent  from 
Rome  every  week  in  the  courier's  bag.  But  Fra 
Paolo  Sarpi  was  a  little  tainted  with  heresy. 

Vol.   7 21 


r\  1  i\ 


V01_XA1RE'S      ARRESX     AX      RRANKF-ORT 


VOLTAIRE 


A    PHILOSOPHICAL    DICTIONARY 


Vol.  IV  — Part  II 


LIST  OF  PLATES 

Part  II 

PAGE 

Voltaire's  Arrest  at   Frankfort    Frontispiece 
Francis  I.  and  His  Sister      ,         .         .         .         286 


A  PHILOSOPHICAL  DICTIONARY. 


COUNTRY. 

According  to  our  custom,  we  confine  ourselves 
on  this  subject  to  the  statement  of  a  few  queries 
which  we  cannot  resolve.  Has  a  Jew  a  country?  If 
he  is  born  at  Coimbra,  it  is  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd 
of  ignorant  and  absurd  persons,  who  will  dispute 
with  him,  and  to  whom  he  makes  foolish  answers, 
if  he  dare  reply  at  all.  He  is  surrounded  by  inquis- 
itors, who  would  burn  him  if  they  knew  that  he 
declined  to  eat  bacon,  and  all  his  wealth  would  be- 
long to  them.  Is  Coimbra  his  country?  Can  he 
exclaim,  like  the  Horatii  in  Corneille: 

M our ir pour  la  patrie  est  un  si  digne  sort 
Qu'on  briguerait  enfoule,  une  si  belle  mort. 

So  high  his  meed  who  for  his  country  dies. 
Men  should  contend  to  gain  the  glorious  prize. 

He  might  as  well  exclaim,  "fiddlestick !"  Again ! 
is  Jerusalem  his  country?  He  has  probably  heard 
of  his  ancestors  of  old ;  that  they  had  formerly  in- 
habited a  sterile  and  stony  country,  which  is  bor- 
dered by  a  horrible  desert,  of  which  little  country 
the  Turks  are  at  present  masters,  but  derive  little 
or  nothing  from  it.  Jerusalem  is,  therefore,  not 
his  country.    In  short,  he  has  no  country:  there  is 

5 


6  Philosophical 

not  a  square  foot  of  land  on  the  globe  which  belongs 
to  him. 

The  Gueber,  more  ancient,  and  a  hundred  times 
more  respectable  tban  the  Jew,  a  slave  of  the  Turks, 
the  Persians,  or  the  Great  Mogul,  can  he  regard  as 
his  country  the  fire-altars  which  he  raises  in  secret 
among  the  mountains  ?  The  Banian,  the  Armenian, 
who  pass  their  lives  in  wandering  through  all  the 
east,  in  the  capacity  of  money-brokers,  can  they  ex- 
claim, "My  dear  country,  my  dear  country" — who 
have  no  other  country  than  their  purses  and  their 
account -books  ? 

Among  the  nations  of  Europe,  all  those  cut- 
throats who  let  out  their  services  to  hire,  and  sell 
their  blood  to  the  first  king  who  will  purchase  it — 
have  they  a  country?  Not  so  much  so  as  a  bird  of 
prey,  who  returns  every  evening  to  the  hollow  of 
the  rock  where  its  mother  built  its  nest!  The 
monks — will  they  venture  to  say  that  they  have  a 
country?  It  is  in  heaven,  they  say.  All  in  good 
time ;   but  in  this  world  I  know  nothing  about  one. 

This  expression,  "my  country,"  how  sounds  it 
from  the  mouth  of  a  Greek,  who,  altogether  ig- 
norant of  the  previous  existence  of  a  Miltiades,  an 
Agesilaus,  only  knows  that  he  is  the  slave  of  a  jan- 
issary, who  is  the  slave  of  an  aga,  who  is  the  slave 
of  a  pasha,  who  is  the  slave  of  a  vizier,  who  is  the 
slave  of  an  individual  whom  we  call,  in  Paris,  the 
Grand  Turk  ? 

What,  then,  is  country?— Is  it  not,  probably,  a 


Dictionary.  7 

good  piece  of  ground,  in  the  midst  of  which  the 
owner,  residing  in  a  well-built  and  commodious 
house,  may  say :  "This  field  which  I  cultivate,  this 
house  which  I  have  built,  is  my  own ;  I  live  under 
the  protection  of  laws  which  no  tyrant  can  infringe. 
When  those  who,  like  me,  possess  fields  and  houses 
assemble  for  their  common  interests,  I  have  a  voice 
in  such  assembly.  I  am  a  part  of  the  whole,  one  of 
the  community,  a  portion  of  the  sovereignty :  be- 
hold my  country !"  What  cannot  be  included  in 
this  description  too  often  amounts  to  little  beyond 
studs  of  horses  under  the  command  of  a  groom, 
who  employs  the  whip  at  his  pleasure.  People  may 
have  a  country  under  a  good  king,  but  never  under 
a  bad  one. 

SECTION    II. 

A  young  pastry-cook  who  had  been  to  college, 
and  who  had  mustered  some  phrases  from  Cicero, 
gave  himself  airs  one  day  about  loving  his  country. 
"What  dost  thou  mean  by  country?"  said  a  neigh- 
bor to  him.  "Is  it  thy  oven?  Is  it  the  village  where 
thou  wast  born,  which  thou  hast  never  seen,  and  to 
which  thou  wilt  never  return?  Is  it  the  street  in 
which  thy  father  and  mother  reside  ?  Is  it  the  town 
hall,  where  thou  wilt  never  become  so  much  as  a 
clerk  or  an  alderman?  Is  it  the  church  of  Notre 
Dame,  in  which  thou  hast  not  been  able  to  obtain 
a  place  among  the  boys  of  the  choir,  although  a  very 
silly  person,  who  is  archbishop  and  duke,  obtains 


8  Philosophical 

from  it  an  annual  income  of  twenty-four  thousand 
louis  d'or?" 

The  young  pastry-cook  knew  not  how  to  reply; 
and  a  person  of  reflection,  who  overheard  the  con- 
versation, was  led  to  infer  that  a  country  of  mod- 
erate extent  may  contain  many  millions  of  men  who 
have  no  country  at  all.  And  thou,  voluptuous  Pa- 
risian, who  hast  never  made  a  longer  voyage  than 
to  Dieppe,  to  feed  upon  fresh  sea-fish — who  art 
acquainted  only  with  thy  splendid  town-house,  thy 
pretty  villa  in  the  country,  thy  box  at  that  opera 
which  all  the  world  makes  it  a  point  to  feel  tiresome 
but  thyself — who  speakest  thy  own  language  agree- 
ably enough,  because  thou  art  ignorant  of  every 
other ;  thou  lovest  all  this,  no  doubt,  as  well  as  thy 
brilliant  champagne  from  Rheims,  and  thy  rents, 
payable  every  six  months ;  and  loving  these,  thou 
dwellest  upon  thy  love  for  thy  country. 

Speaking  conscientiously,  can  a  financier  cor- 
dially love  his  country  ?  Where  was  the  country  of 
the  duke  of  Guise,  surnamed  Balafre — at  Nancy,  at 
Paris,  at  Madrid,  or  at  Rome?  What  country  had 
your  cardinals  Balue,  Duprat,  Lorraine,  and  Ma- 
zarin?  Where  was  the  country  of  Attila  situated, 
or  that  of  a  hundred  other  heroes  of  the  same  kind, 
who,  although  eternally  travelling,  make  themselves 
always  at  home?  I  should  be  much  obliged  to  any 
one  who  would  acquaint  me  with  the  country  of 
Abraham. 

The  first  who  observed  that  every  land  is  our 


Dictionary.  g 

country  in  which  we  "do  well,"  was,  I  believe,  Eu- 
ripides, in  his  "Phcrdo": 

"Si^  xavzaxu)^  ys  Trar/Ji?  Boaxobaa  yrj. 

The  first  man,  however,  who  left  the  place  of  his 
birth  to  seek  a  greater  share  of  welfare  in  another, 
said  it  before  him. 

SECTION     III. 

A  country  is  a  composition  of  many  families; 
and  as  a  family  is  commonly  supported  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-love,  when,  by  an  opposing  interest, 
the  same  self-love  extends  to  our  town,  our  province, 
or  our  nation,  it  is  called  love  of  country.  The 
greater  a  country  becomes,  the  less  we  love  it ;  for 
love  is  weakened  by  diffusion.  It  is  impossible  to 
love  a  family  so  numerous  that  all  the  members  can 
scarcely  be  known. 

He  who  is  burning  with  ambition  to  be  edile, 
tribune,  praetor,  consul,  or  dictator,  exclaims  that  he 
loves  his  country,  while  he  loves  only  himself. 
Every  man  wishes  to  possess  the  power  of  sleeping 
quietly  at  home,  and  of  preventing  any  other  man 
from  possessing  the  power  of  sending  him  to  sleep 
elsewhere.  Every  one  would  be  certain  of  his  prop- 
erty and  his  life.  Thus,  all  forming  the  same  wishes, 
the  particular  becomes  the  general  interest.  The 
welfare  of  the  republic  is  spoken  of,  while  all  that 
is  signified  is  love  of  self. 

It  is  impossible  that  a  state  was  ever  formed  on 
earth,  which  was  not  governed  in  the  first  instance 


lO  Philosophical 

as  a  republic :  it  is  the  natural  march  of  human  na- 
ture. On  the  discovery  of  America,  all  the  people 
were  found  divided  into  republics ;  there  were  but 
two  kingdoms  in  all  that  part  of  the  world.  Of  a 
thousand  nations,  but  two  were  found  subjugated. 

It  was  the  same  in  the  ancient  world ;  all  was 
republican  in  Europe  before  the  little  kinglings  of 
Etruria  and  of  Rome.  There  are  yet  republics  in 
Africa:  the  Hottentots,  towards  the  south,  still  live 
as  people  are  said  to  have  lived  in  the  first  ages  of 
the  world — free,  equal,  without  masters,  without 
subjects,  without  money,  and  almost  without  wants. 
The  flesh  of  their  sheep  feeds  them  ;  they  are  clothed 
with  their  skins ;  huts  of  wood  and  clay  form  their 
habitations.  They  are  the  most  dirty  of  all  men, 
but  they  feel  it  not,  but  live  and  die  more  easily  than 
we  do.  There  remain  eight  republics  in  Europe 
without  monarchs — Venice,  Holland,  Switzerland, 
Genoa,  Lucca,  Ragusa,  Geneva,  and  San  Marino. 
Poland,  Sweden,  and  England  may  be  regarded  as 
republics  under  a  king,  but  Poland  is  the  only  one 
of  them  which  takes  the  name. 

But  which  of  the  two  is  to  be  preferred  for  a 
country — a  monarchy  or  a  republic?  The  question 
has  been  agitated  for  four  thousand  years.  Ask  the 
rich,  and  they  will  tell  you  an  aristocracy ;  ask  the 
people,  and  they  will  reply  a  democracy ;  kings  alone 
prefer  royalty.  Why,  then,  is  almost  all  the  earth 
governed  by  monarchs?  Put  that  question  to  the 
rats  who  proposed  to  hang  a  bell  around  the  cat's 


Dictionary.  1 1 

neck.    In  truth,  the  genuine  reason  is,  because  men 
are  rarely  worthy  of  governing  themselves. 

It  is  lamentable,  that  to  be  a  good  patriot  -we 
must  become  the  enemy  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 
That  good  citizen,  the  ancient  Cato,  always  gave 
it  as  his  opinion,  that  Carthage  must  be  destroyed: 
"Delenda  est  Carthago."  To  be  a  good  patriot  is 
to  wish  our  own  country  enriched  by  commerce, 
and  powerful  by  arms ;  but  such  is  the  condition  of 
mankind,  that  to  wish  the  greatness  of  our  own 
country  is  often  to  wish  evil  to  our  neighbors.  He 
who  could  bring  himself  to  wish  that  his  country 
should  always  remain  as  it  is,  would  be  a  citizen  of 
tr^t  universe. 

CRIMES    OR    OFFENCES. 
Of  Time  and  Place. 

A  Roman  in  Egypt  very  unfortunately  killed  a 
consecrated  cat,  and  the  infuriated  people  punished 
this  sacrilege  by  tearing  him  to  pieces.  If  this  Ro- 
man had  been  carried  before  the  tribunal,  and  the 
judges  had  possessed  common  sense,  he  would  have 
been  condemned  to  ask  pardon  of  the  Egyptians  and 
the  cats,  and  to  pay  a  heavy  fine,  either  in  money  or 
mice.  They  would  have  told  him  that  he  ought  to 
respect  the  follies  of  the  people,  since  he  was  not 
strong  enough  to  correct  them. 

The  venerable  chief  justice  should  have  spoken 
to  him  in  this  manner:  "Every  country  has  its 
legal  impertinences,  and  its  offences  of  time  and 


12  Philosophical 

place.  If  in  your  Rome,  which  has  become  the  sov- 
ereign of  Europe,  Africa,  and  Asia  Minor,  you  were 
to  kill  a  sacred  fowl,  at  the  precise  time  that  you 
give  it  grain  in  order  to  ascertain  the  just  will  of 
the  gods,  you  would  be  severely  punished.  We  be- 
lieve that  you  have  only  killed  our  cat  accidentally. 
The  court  admonishes  you.  Go  in  peace,  and  be 
more  circumspect  in  future." 

It  seems  a  very  indifferent  thing  to  have  a  statue 
in  our  hall ;  but  if,  when  Octavius,  surnamed  Au- 
gustus, was  absolute  master,  a  Roman  had  placed  in 
his  house  the  statue  of  Brutus,  he  would  have  been 
punished  as  seditious.  If  a  citizen,  under  a  reign- 
ing emperor,  had  the  statue  of  the  competitor  to  the 
empire,  it  is  said  that  it  was  accounted  a  crime  of 
high  treason. 

An  Englishman,  having  nothing  to  do,  went  to 
Rome,  where  he  met  Prince  Charles  Edward  at  the 
house  of  a  cardinal.  Pleased  at  the  incident,  on  his 
return  he  drank  in  a  tavern  to  the  health  of  Prince 
Charles  Edward,  and  was  immediately  accused  of 
high  treason.  But  whom  did  he  highly  betray  in 
wishing  the  prince  well?  If  he  had  conspired  to 
place  him  on  the  throne,  then  he  would  have  been 
guilty  towards  the  nation ;  but  I  do  not  see  that  the 
most  rigid  justice  of  parliament  could  require  more 
from  him  than  to  drink  four  cups  to  the  health  of 
the  house  of  Hanover,  supposing  he  had  drunk  two 
to  the  house  of  Stuart. 


Dictionary,  13 

Of  Crimes  of  Time  and  Place,  ivhich  Ought  to  Be 
Concealed. 

It  is  well  known  how  much  our  Lady  of  Loretto 
ought  to  be  respected  in  the  March  of  Ancona. 
Three  young  people  happened  to  be  joking  on  the 
house  of  our  lady,  which  has  travelled  through  the 
air  to  Dalmatia;  which  has  two  or  three  times 
changed  its  situation,  and  has  only  found  itself  com- 
fortable at  Loretto.  Our  three  scatterbrains  sang 
a  song  at  supper,  formerly  made  by  a  Huguenot, 
in  ridicule  of  the  translation  of  the  santa  casa  of 
Jerusalem  to  the  end  of  the  Adriatic  Gulf.  A  fa- 
natic, having  heard  by  chance  what  passed^  at  their 
supper,  made  strict  inquiries,  sought  witnesses,  and 
engaged  a  magistrate  to  issue  a  summons.  This  pro- 
ceeding alarmed  all  consciences.  Every  one  trem- 
bled in  speaking  of  it.  Chambermaids,  vergers,  inn- 
keepers, lackeys,  servants,  all  heard  what  was  never 
said,  and  saw  what  was  never  done:  there  was  an 
uproar,  a  horrible  scandal  throughout  the  whole 
March  of  Ancona.  It  was  said,  half  a  league  from 
Loretto,  that  these  youths  had  killed  our  lady ;  and 
a  league  farther,  that  they  had  thrown  the  sunta 
casa  into  the  sea.  In  short,  they  were  condemned. 
The  sentence  was,  that  their  hands  should  be  cut  off, 
and  their  tongues  be  torn  out;  after  which  they  were 
to  be  put  to  the  torture,  to  learn — at  least  by  signs 
— how  many  couplets  there  were  in  the  song.  Fi- 
nally, they  were  to  be  burnt  to  death  by  a  slow  fire. 


14  Philosophical 

An  advocate  of  Milan,  who  happened  to  be  at 
Loretto  at  this  time,  asked  the  principal  judge  to 
what  he  would  have  condemned  these  boys  if  they 
had  violated  their  mother,  and  afterwards  killed  and 
eaten  her?  "Oh!"  repHed  the  judge,  "there  is  a 
great  deal  of  difference ;  to  assassinate  and  devour 
their  father  and  mother  is  only  a  crime  against 
men."  "Have  you  an  express  law,"  said  the  Milan- 
ese, "which  obliges  you  to  put  young  people  scarcely 
out  of  their  nurseries  to  such  a  horrible  death,  for 
having  indiscreetly  made  game  of  the  santa  casa, 
which  is  contemptuously  laughed  at  all  over  the 
world,  except  in  the  March  of  Ancona?"  "No," 
said  the  judge,  "the  wisdom  of  our  jurisprudence 
leaves  all  to  our  discretion."  "Very  well,  you 
ought  to  have  discretion  enough  to  remember  that 
one  of  these  children  is  the  grandson  of  a  general 
who  has  shed  his  blood  for  his  country,  and  the 
nephew  of  an  amiable  and  respectable  abbess ;  the 
youth  and  his  companions  are  giddy  boys,  who  de- 
serve paternal  correction.  You  tear  citizens  from 
the  state,  who  might  one  day  serve  it;  you  imbrue 
yourself  in  innocent  blood,  and  are  more  cruel  than 
cannibals.  You  will  render  yourselves  execrable  to 
posterity.  What  motive  has  been  powerful  enough, 
thus  to  extinguish  reason,  justice,  and  humanity  in 
your  minds,  and  to  change  you  into  ferocious 
beasts?"  The  unhappy  judge  at  last  repHed:  *'We 
have  been  quarrelling  with  the  clergy  of  Ancona; 
they  accuse  us  of  being  too  zealous  for  the  liberties 


Dictionary.  i^ 

of  the  Lombard  Church,  and  consequently  of  having 
no  religion."  "I  understand,  then,"  said  the  Milan- 
ese, "that  you  have  made  yourselves  assassins  to 
appear  Christians."  At  these  words  the  judge  fell 
to  the  ground,  as  if  struck  by  a  thunderbolt;  and 
his  brother  judges  having  been  since  deprived  of 
office,  they  cry  out  that  injustice  is  done  them.  They 
forget  what  they  have  done,  and  perceive  not  that 
the  hand  of  God  is  upon  them. 

For  seven  persons  legally  to  amuse  themselves 
by  making  an  eighth  perish  on  a  public  scaffold  by 
blows  from  iron  bars;  take  a  secret  and  malignant 
pleasure  in  witnessing  his  torments ;  speak  of  it 
afterwards  at  table  with  their  wives  and  neighbors ; 
for  the  executioners  to  perform  this  office  gaily, 
and  joyously  anticipate  their  reward ;  for  the  pub- 
lic to  run  to  this  spectacle  as  to  a  fair — all  this  re- 
quires that  a  crime  merit  this  horrid  punishment  in 
the  opinion  of  all  well-governed  nations,  and,  as  we 
here  treat  of  universal  humanity,  that  it  is  necessary 
to  the  well-being  of  society.  Above  all,  the  actual 
perpetration  should  be  demonstrated  beyond  con- 
tradiction. If  against  a  hundred  thousand  proba- 
bilities that  the  accused  be  guilty  there  is  a  single 
one  that  he  is  innocent,  that  alone  should  balance 
all  the  rest. 

Query:    Are  Two  Witnesses  Enough  to  Condemn 
a  Man  to  be  Hanged  f 

It  has  been  for  a  long  time  imagined,  and  the 
proverb  assures  us,  that  two  witnesses  are  enough  to 


1 6  Philosophical 

hang  a  man,  with  a  safe  conscience.  Another  am- 
biguity !  The  world,  then,  is  to  be  governed  by 
equivoques.  It  is  said  in  St.  Matthew  that  two 
or  three  witnesses  will  suffice  to  reconcile  two 
divided  friends ;  and  after  this  text  has  criminal 
jurisprudence  been  regulated,  so  far  as  to  decree 
that  by  divine  law  a  citizen  may  be  condemned  to 
die  on  the  uniform  deposition  of  two  witnesses  who 
may  be  villains?  It  has  been  already  said  that  a 
crowd  of  according  witnesses  cannot  prove  an  im- 
probable thing  when  denied  by  the  accused.  What, 
then,  must  be  done  in  such  a  case?  Put  off  the 
judgment  for  a  hundred  years,  like  the  Athenians ! 
We  shall  here  relate  a  striking  example  of  what 
passed  under  our  eyes  at  Lyons.  A  woman  sud- 
denly missed  her  daughter ;  she  ran  everywhere  in 
search  of  her  in  vain,  and  at  length  suspected  a 
neighbor  of  having  secreted  the  girl,  and  of  having 
caused  her  violation.  Some  weeks  after  some  fish- 
ermen found  a  female  drowned,  and  in  a  state  of 
putrefaction,  in  the  Rhone  at  Condmeux.  The 
woman  of  whom  we  have  spoken  immediately  be- 
lieved that  it  was  her  daughter.  She  was  persuaded 
by  the  enemies  of  her  neighbor  that  the  latter  had 
caused  the  deceased  to  be  dishonored,  strangled, 
and  thrown  into  the  Rhone.  She  made  this  accusa- 
tion publicly,  and  the  populace  repeated  it;  per- 
sons were  found  who  knew  the  minutest  circum- 
stances of  the  crime.  The  rumor  ran  through  all 
the  town,  and  all  mouths  cried  out  for  vengeance. 


Dictionary.  17 

There  is  nothing  more  common  than  this  in  a  popu- 
lace without  judgment;  but  here  follows  the  most 
prodigious  part  of  the  affair.  This  neighbor's  own 
son,  a  child  of  five  years  and  a  half  old,  accused 
his  mother  of  having  caused  the  unhappy  girl  who 
was  found  in  the  Rhone  to  be  violated  before  his 
eyes,  and  to  be  held  by  five  men,  while  the  sixth 
committed  the  crime.  He  had  heard  the  words 
which  pronounced  her  violated ;  he  painted  her  at- 
titudes; he  saw  his  mother  and  these  villains 
strangle  this  unfortunate  girl  after  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  act.  He  also  saw  his  mother  and  the 
assassins  throw  her  into  a  well,  draw  her  out  of  it, 
wrap  her  up  in  a  cloth,  carr}^  her  about  in  triumph, 
dance  round  the  corpse,  and,  at  last,  throw  her  into 
the  Rhone.  The  judges  were  obliged  to  put  all  the 
pretended  accomplices  deposed  against  in  chains. 
The  child  is  again  heard,  and  still  maintains,  with 
the  simplicity  of  his  age,  all  that  he  had  said  of 
them  and  of  his  mother.  How  could  it  be  imagined 
that  this  child  had  not  spoken  the  pure  truth  ?  The 
crime  was  not  probable,  but  it  was  still  less  so  that 
a  child  of  the  age  of  five  years  and  a  half  should 
thus  calumniate  his  mother,  and  repeat  with  exact- 
ness all  the  circumstances  of  an  abominable  and 
unheard-of  crime ;  if  he  had  not  been  the  eye-wit- 
ness of  it,  and  been  overcome  with  the  force  of  the 
truth,  such  things  would  not  have  been  wrung  from 
him. 

Every   one   expected   to   feast  his   eyes   on   the 
Vol.  8—2 


1 8  Philosophical 

lorment  of  the  accused;  but  what  was  the  end  of 
this  strange  criminal  process?  There  was  not  a 
word  pf  truth  in  the  accusation.  There  was  no 
girl  violated,  no  young  men  assembled  at  the  house 
of  the  accused,  no  murder,  not  the  least  transaction 
of  the  sort,  nor  the  least  noise.  The  child  had  been 
suborned;  and  by  whom?  Strange,  but  true,  by 
two  other  children,  who  were  the  sons  of  the  ac- 
cused. He  had  been  on  the  point  of  burning  his 
mother  to  get  some  sweetmeats. 

The  heads  of  the  accusation  were  clearly  in- 
compatible. The  sage  and  enlightened  court  of 
judicature,  after  having  yielded  to  the  public  fury 
so  far  as  to  seek  every  possible  testimony  for  and 
against  the  accused,  fully  and  unanimously  acquitted 
them.  Formerly,  perhaps,  this  innocent  prisoner 
would  have  been  broken  on  the  wheel,  or  judicially 
burned,  for  the  pleasure  of  supplying  an  execution — 
the  tragedy  of  the  mob. 

CRIMINAL. 
Criminal  Prosecution. 
Very  innocent  actions  have  been  frequently 
punished  with  death.  Thus  in  England,  Richard 
III.,  and  Edward  IV.,  effected  by  the  judges  the 
condemnation  of  those  whom  they  suspected  of  dis- 
affection. Such  are  not  criminal  processes ;  they 
are  assassinations  committed  by  privileged  mur- 
derers. It  is  the  last  degree  of  abuse  to  make  the 
laws  the  instruments  of  injustice. 


Dictionary,  19 

It  is  said  that  the  Athenians  punished  with  death 
every  stranger  who  entered  their  areopagus  or  sov- 
ereign tribunal.  But  if  this  stranger  was  actuated 
by  mere  curiosity,  nothing  was  more  cruel  than  to 
take  away  his  life.  It  is  observed,  in  "The  Spirit 
of  Laws,"  that  this  vigor  was  exercised,  "because 
he  usurped  the  rights  of  a  citizen." 

But  a  Frenchman  in  London  who  goes  to  the 
House  of  Commons  to  hear  the  debates,  does  not 
aspire  to  the  rights  of  a  citizen.  He  is  received 
with  politeness.  If  any  splenetic  member  calls  for 
the  clearing  of  the  house,  the  traveller  clears  it  by 
withdrawing ;  he  is  not  hanged.  It  is  probable  that, 
if  the  Athenians  passed  this  temporary  law,  it  was 
at  a  time  when  it  was  suspected  that  every  stranger 
might  be  a  spy,  and  not  from  the  fear  that  he  would 
arrogate  to  himself  the  rights  of  citizenship.  Every 
Athenian  voted  in  his  tribe ;  all  the  individuals  in 
the  tribe  knew  each  other;  no  stranger  could  have 
put  in  his  bean. 

We  speak  here  only  of  a  real  criminal  prosecution, 
and  among  the  Romans  every  criminal  prosecution 
was  public.  The  citizen  accused  of  the  most  enor- 
mous crimes  had  an  advocate  w^ho  pleaded  in  his 
presence  :  who  even  interrogated  the  adverse  party  ; 
who  investigated  everything  before  his  judges.  All 
the  witnesses,  for  and  against,  were  produced  in 
open  court;  nothing  was  secret.  Cicero  pleaded 
for  Milo,  who  had  assassinated  Clodius,  in  the 
presence  of  a  thousand  citizens.     The  same  Cicero 


20  Philosophical 

undertook  the  defence  of  Roscius  Ameriniis,  ac- 
cused of  parricide.  A  single  judge  did  not  in  secret 
examine  witnesses,  generally  consisting  of  the  dregs 
of  the  people,  who  may  be  influenced  at  pleasure. 

A  Roman  citizen  was  not  put  to  the  torture  at 
the  arbitrary  order  of  another  Roman  citizen,  in- 
vested with  this  cruel  authority  by  purchase.  That 
horrible  outrage  against  humanity  was  not  perpe- 
trated on  the  persons  of  those  who  were  regarded  as 
the  first  of  men,  but  only  on  those  of  their  slaves, 
scarcely  regarded  as  men.  It  would  have  been  bet- 
ter not  to  have  employed  torture,  even  against 
slaves. 

The  method  of  conducting  a  criminal  prosecu- 
tion at  Rome  accorded  with  the  magnanimity  and 
liberality  of  the  nation.  It  is  nearly  the  same  in 
London.  The  assistance  of  an  advocate  is  never 
in  any  case  refused.  Every  one  is  judged  by  his 
peers.  Every  citizen  has  the  power,  out  of  thirty- 
six  jurymen  sworn,  to  challenge  twelve  without 
reasons,  twelve  with  reasons,  and,  consequently,  of 
choosing  his  judges  in  the  remaining  twelve.  The 
judges  cannot  deviate  from  or  go  beyond  the  law. 
No  punishment  is  arbitrary.  No  judgment  can  be 
executed  before  it  has  been  reported  to  the  king, 
who  may,  and  who  ought  to  bestow  pardon  on  those 
who  are  deserving  of  it,  and  to  whom  the  law  can- 
not extend  it.  This  case  frequently  occurs.  A  man 
outrageously  wronged  kills  the  offender  under  the 
impulse  of  venial  passion ;   he  is  condemned  by  the 


Dictionary.  21 

rigor  of  the  law,  and  saved  by  that  mercy  which 
ought  to  be  the  prerogative  of  the  sovereign. 

It  deserves  particular  remark  that  in  the  same 
country  where  the  laws  are  as  favorable  to  the  ac- 
cused as  they  are  terrible  for  the  guilty,  not  only  is 
false  imprisonment  in  ordinary  cases  punished  by 
heavy  damages  and  severe  penalties,  but  if  an  illegal 
imprisonment  has  been  ordered  by  a  minister  of 
state,  under  color  of  royal  authority,  that  minister 
may  be  condemned  to  pay  damages  corresponding 
to  the  imprisonment. 

Proceedings  in  Criminal  Cases  Among  Particular 
Nations. 

There  are  countries  in  which  criminal  juris- 
prudence has  been  founded  on  the  canon  law,  and 
even  on  the  practice  of  the  Inquisition,  although  that 
tribunal  has  long  since  been  held  in  detestation 
there.  The  people  in  such  countries  still  remain  in 
a  species  of  slavery.  A  citizen  prosecuted  by  the 
king's  officer  is  at  once  immured  in  a  dungeon, 
which  is  in  itself  a  real  punishment  of  perhaps  an 
innocent  man.  A  single  judge,  with  his  clerk,  hears 
secretly  and  in  succession,  every  witness  sum- 
moned. 

Let  us  here  merely  compare,  in  a  few  points,  the 
criminal  procedure  of  the  Romans  with  that  of  a 
country  of  the  west,  which  was  once  a  Roman 
province.  Among  the  Romans,  witnesses  were  heard 
publicly  in  the  presence  of  the  accused,  who  might 


22  Philosophical 

reply  to  them,  and  examine  them  himself,  or 
through  an  advocate.  This  practice  was  noble  and 
frank ;  it  breathed  of  Roman  magnanimity.  In 
France,  in  many  parts  of  Germany,  everything  is 
done  in  secret.  This  practice,  established  under 
Francis  I.,  was  authorized  by  the  commissioners, 
who,  in  1670,  drew  up  the  ordinance  of  Louis  XIV. 
A  mere  mistake  was  the  cause  of  it. 

It  was  imagined,  on  reading  the  code  "De  Tcsti- 
bus"  that  the  words,  Testes  intrare  judicii  secrctmn, 
signified  that  witnesses  were  examined  in  secret. 
But  secretiim  here  signifies  the  chambers  of  the 
judge.  Intrare  seer c turn  to  express  speaking  in 
secret,  would  not  be  Latin.  This  part  of  our  juris- 
prudence was  occasioned  by  a  solecism.  Witnesses 
were  usually  persons  of  the  lowest  class,  and  whom 
the  judge,  when  closeted  with  them,  might  induce 
to  say  whatever  he  wished.  These  witnesses  are 
examined  a  second  time,  always  in  secret,  which  is 
called,  re-examination  ;  and  if,  after  re-examination, 
they  retract  their  depositions,  or  vary  them  in  es- 
sential circumstances,  they  are  punished  as  false 
witnesses.  Thus,  when  an  upright  man  of  weak 
understanding,  and  unused  to  express  his  ideas,  is 
conscious  that  he  has  stated  either  too  much  or  too 
little — that  he  has  misunderstood  the  judge,  or  that 
the  judge  has  misunderstood  him — and  revokes,  in 
the  spirit  of  justice,  what  he  has  advanced  through 
incaution,  he  is  punished  as  a  felon.  He  is  in  this 
manner  often  compelled  to  persevere  in  false  testi- 


Dictionary.  23 

mony,  from  the  actual  dread  of  being  treated  as  a 
false  witness. 

The  person  accused  exposes  himself  by  flight  to 
condemnation,  whether  the  crime  has  been  proved 
or  not.  Some  jurisconsults,  indeed,  have  wisely 
held  that  the  contumacious  person  ought  not  to  be 
condemned  unless  the  crime  were  clearly  estab- 
lished ;  but  other  lawyers  have  been  of  a  contrary 
opinion  :  they  have  boldly  affirmed  that  the  flight  of 
the  accused  was  a  proof  of  the  crime ;  that  the  con- 
tempt which  he  showed  for  justice,  by  refusing  to 
appear,  merited  the  same  chastisement  as  would 
have  followed  his  conviction.  Thus,  according  to 
the  sect  of  lawyers  which  the  judge  may  have  em- 
braced, an  innocent  man  may  be  acquitted  or  con- 
demned. 

It  is  a  great  abuse  in  jurisprudence  that  people 
often  assume  as  law  the  reveries  and  errors — some- 
times cruel  ones — of  men  destitute  of  all  authority, 
who  have  laid  down  their  own  opinions  as  laws.  In 
the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  two  edicts  were  published 
in  France,  which  apply  equally  to  the  whole  king- 
dom. In  the  first,  which  refers  to  civil  causes,  the 
judges  are  forbidden  to  condemn  in  any  suit,  on 
default,  when  the  demand  is  not  proved ;  but  in 
the  second,  which  regulates  criminal  proceedings,  it 
is  not  laid  down  that,  in  the  absence  of  proof,  the 
accused  shall  be  acquitted.  Singular  circumstance! 
The  law  declares  that  a  man  proceeded  against  for 
a  sum  of  money  shall  not  be  condemned,  on  default, 


24  Philosophical 

unless  the  debt  be  proved ;  but,  in  cases  affecting 
life,  the  profession  is  divided  with  respect  to  con- 
demning a  person  for  contumacy  when  the  crime 
is  not  proved ;  and  the  law  does  not  solve  the  diffi- 
culty. 

Example  Taken  from  the  Condemnation  of  a  Whole 
Family. 

The  following  is  an  account  of  what  happened 
to  an  unfortunate  family,  at  the  time  when  the  mad 
fraternities  of  pretended  penitents,  in  white  robes 
and  masks,  had  erected,  in  one  of  the  principal 
churches  of  Toulouse,  a  superb  monument  to  a 
young  Protestant,  who  had  destroyed  himself,  but 
who  they  pretended  had  been  murdered  by  his 
father  and  mother  for  having  abjured  the  reformed 
religion ;  at  the  time  when  the  whole  family  of  this 
Protestant,  then  revered  as  a  martyr,  were  in  irons, 
and  a  whole  population,  intoxicated  by  a  supersti- 
tion equally  senseless  and  cruel,  awaited  with  de- 
vout impatience  the  delight  of  seeing  five  or  six  per- 
sons of  unblemished  integrity  expire  on  the  rack  or 
at  the  stake.  At  this  dreadful  period  there  resided 
near  Castres  a  respectable  man,  also  of  the  Protest- 
ant religion,  of  the  name  of  Sirven,  who  exercised 
in  that  province  the  profession  of  a  feudist.  This 
man  had  three  daughters.  A  woman  who  superin- 
tended the  household  of  the  bishop  of  Castres,  pro- 
posed to  bring  to  him  Sirven's  second  daughter, 
called  Elizabeth,  in  order  to  make  her  a  Catholic, 


Dictionary.  25 

apostolical  and  Roman.  She  is,  in  fact,  brought. 
She  is  by  him  secluded  with  the  female  Jesuits,  de- 
nominated the  "lady  teachers,"  or  the  "black  ladies." 
They  instruct  her  in  what  they  know ;  they  find  her 
capacity  weak,  and  impose  upon  her  penances  in 
order  to  inculcate  doctrines  which,  with  gentleness, 
she  might  have  been  taught.  She  becomes  imbecile ; 
the  "black  ladies"  expel  her ;  she  returns  to  her 
parents ;  her  mother,  on  making  her  change  her 
linen,  perceives  that  her  person  is  covered  with  con- 
tusions ;  her  imbecility  increases ;  she  becomes 
melancholy  mad ;  she  escapes  one  day  from  the 
house,  while  her  father  is  some  miles  distant,  pub- 
licly occupied  in  his  business,  at  the  seat  of  a  neigh- 
boring nobleman.  In  short,  twenty  days  after  the 
flight  of  Elizabeth,  some  children  find  her  drowned 
in  a  well,  on  January  4,  1761. 

This  was  precisely  the  time  when  they  were  pre- 
paring to  break  Calas  on  the  wheel  at  Toulouse. 
The  word  "parricide,"  and  what  is  worse,  "Hugue- 
not," flies  from  mouth  to  mouth  throughout  the 
province.  It  was  not  doubted  that  Sirven,  his  wife, 
and  his  two  daughters,  had  drowned  the  third,  on 
a  principle  of  religion. 

It  was  the  universal  opinion  that  the  Protestant 
religion  positively  required  fathers  and  mothers  to 
destroy  such  of  their  children  as  might  wish  to  be- 
come Catholics.  This  opinion  had  taken  such  deep 
root  in  the  minds  even  of  magistrates  themselves, 
hurried  on  unfortunately  by  the  public  clamor,  that 


26  Philosophical 

the  Council  and  Church  of  Geneva  were  obliged  to 
contradict  the  fatal  error,  and  to  send  to  the  parlia- 
ment of  Toulouse  an  attestation  upon  oath  that  not 
only  did  Protestants  not  destroy  their  children,  but 
that  they  were  left  masters  of  their  whole  property 
when  they  quitted  their  sect  for  another.  It  is 
known  that,  notwithstanding  this  attestation,  Calas 
was  broken  on  the  wheel. 

A  country  magistrate  of  the  name  of  Londes, 
assisted  by  graduates  as  sagacious  as  himself,  be- 
came eager  to  make  every  preparation  for  follow- 
ing up  the  example  which  had  been  furnished  at 
Toulouse.  A  village  doctor,  equally  enlightened 
with  the  magistrate,  boldly  affirmed,  on  inspecting 
the  body  after  the  expiration  of  eighteen  days,  that 
the  young  woman  had  been  strangled,  and  after- 
wards thrown  into  the  well.  On  this  deposition  the 
magistrate  issued  a  warrant  to  apprehend  the  father, 
mother,  and  the  two  daughters.  The  family,  justly 
terrified  at  the  catastrophe  of  Calas,  and  agreeably 
to  the  advice  of  their  friends,  betook  themselves  in- 
stantly to  flight ;  they  travelled  amidst  snow  during 
a  rigorous  winter,  and,  toiling  over  mountain  after 
mountain,  at  length  arrived  at  those  of  Switzerland. 
The  daughter,  who  was  married  and  pregnant,  was 
prematurely  delivered  amidst  surrounding  ice. 

The  first  intelligence  this  family  received,  after 
reaching  a  place  of  safety,  was  that  the  father  and 
mother  were  condemned  to  be  hanged ;  the  two 
daughters  to  remain  under  the  gallows  during  the 


Dictionary.  27 

execution  of  their  mother,  and  to  be  reconductcfl 
by  the  executioner  out  of  the  territory,  under  pam 
of  being  hanged  if  they  returned.  Such  is  the  lesson 
given  to  contumacy ! 

This  judgment  was  equally  absurd  and  abomin- 
able. If  the  father,  in  concert  with  his  wife,  had 
strangled  his  daughter,  he  ought  to  have  been 
broken  on  the  wheel,  like  Calas,  and  the  mother  to 
have  been  burned — at  least,  after  having  been 
strangled — because  the  practice  of  breaking  women 
on  the  wheel  is  not  yet  the  custom  in  the  country 
of  this  judge.  To  limit  the  punishment  to  hanging 
in  such  a  case,  was  an  acknowledgment  that  the 
crime  was  not  proved,  and  that  in  the  doubt  the 
halter  was  adopted  to  compromise  for  want  of  evi- 
dence. This  sentence  was  equally  repugnant  to  law 
and  reason.  The  mother  died  of  a  broken  heart, 
and  the  whole  family,  their  property  having  been 
confiscated,  would  have  perished  through  want, 
unless  they  had  met  with  assistance. 

We  stop  here  to  inquire  whether  there  be  any 
law  and  any  reason  that  can  justify  such  a  sentence? 
We  ask  the  judge,  "What  madness  has  urged  you  to 
condemn  a  father  and  a  mother?"  "It  was  because 
they  fled,"  he  replies.  "Miserable  wretch,  would 
you  have  had  them  remain  to  glut  your  insensate 
fury?  Of  what  consequence  could  it  be,  whether 
they  appeared  in  chains  to  plead  before  you.  or 
whether  in  a  distant  land  they  lifted  up  their  hands 
in  an  appeal  to  heaven  against  you  ?    Could  you  not 


28  Philosophical 

see  the  truth,  which  ought  to  have  struck  you,  as 
well  during  their  absence?  Could  you  not  see  that 
the  father  was  a  league  distant  from  his  daughter, 
in  the  midst  of  twenty  persons,  when  the  unfortu- 
nate young  woman  withdrew  from  her  mother's  pro- 
tection ?  Could  you  be  ignorant  that  the  whole  fam- 
ily were  in  search  of  her  for  twenty  days  and 
nights?"  To  this  you  answer  by  the  words,  con- 
tumacy, contumacy.  What!  because  a  man  is  ab- 
sent, therefore  must  he  be  condemned  to  be  hanged, 
though  his  innocence  be  manifest?  It  is  the  juris- 
prudence of  a  fool  and  a  monster.  And  the  life,  the 
property,  and  the  honor  of  citizens,  are  to  depend 
upon  this  code  of  Iroquois  ! 

The  Sirven  family  for  more  than  eight  years 
dragged  on  their  misfortunes,  far  from  their  native 
country.  At  length,  the  sanguinary  superstition 
which  disgraced  Languedoc  having  been  somewhat 
mitigated,  and  men's  minds  becoming  more  enlight- 
ened, those  who  had  befriended  the  Sirvens  during 
their  exile,  advised  them  to  return  and  demand 
justice  from  the  parliament  of  Toulouse  itself,  now 
that  the  blood  of  Calas  no  longer  smoked,  and  many 
repented  of  having  ever  shed  it.  The  Sirvens  were 
justified. 

Erudimini,  qui  jicdicutis  terrain. 
Be  instructed,  ye  judges  of  the  earth. 


Dictionary.  29 

CROMWELL. 

SECTION   I. 

Cromwell  is  described  as  a  man  who  was  an 
impostor  all  his  life.  I  can  scarcely  believe  it.  I 
conceive  that  he  was  first  an  enthusiast,  and  that  he 
afterwards  made  his  fanaticism  instrumental  to  his 
greatness.  An  ardent  novice  at  twenty  often  be- 
comes an  accomplished  rogue  at  forty.  In  the  great 
game  of  human  life,  men  begin  with  being  dupes, 
and  end  in  becoming  knaves.  A  statesman  engages 
as  his  almoner  a  monk,  entirely  made  up  of  the  de- 
tails of  his  convent,  devout,  credulous,  awkward, 
perfectly  new  to  the  world ;  he  acquires  informa- 
tion, polish,  finesse,  and  supplants  his  master. 

Cromwell  knew  not,  at  first,  whether  he  should 
become  a  churchman  or  a  soldier.  He  partly  be- 
came both.  In  1622  he  made  a  campaign  in  the 
army  of  the  prince  of  Orange,  Frederick  Henry,  a 
great  man  and  the  brother  of  two  great  men ;  and, 
on  his  return  to  England,  engaged  in  the  service  of 
Bishop  Williams,  and  was  the  chaplain  of  his  lord- 
ship, while  the  bishop  passed  for  his  wife's  gallant. 
His  principles  were  puritanical,  which  led  him  to 
cordially  hate  a  bishop,  and  not  to  be  partial  to  king- 
ship. He  was  dismissed  from  the  family  of  Bishop 
Williams  because  he  was  a  Puritan ;  and  thence 
the  origin  of  his  fortune.  The  English  Parliament 
declared  against  monarchy  and  against  episcopacy ; 
some  friends  whom  he  had  in  that  parliament  pro- 


30  Philosophical 

cured  him  a  country  living.  He  might  be  said  only 
now  to  have  commenced  his  existence  ;  he  was  more 
than  forty  before  he  acquired  any  distinction.  He 
was  master  of  the  sacred  Scriptures,  disputed  on 
the  authority  of  priests  and  deacons,  wrote  some 
bad  sermons,  and  some  lampoons ;  but  he  was  un- 
known. I  have  seen  one  of  his  sermons,  which  is 
insipid  enough,  and  pretty  much  resembles  the  hold- 
ings forth  of  the  Quakers ;  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
cover in  it  any  trace  of  that  power  by  which  he 
afterwards  swayed  parliaments.  The  truth  is,  he 
was  better  fitted  for  the  State  than  for  the  Church, 
It  was  principally  in  his  tone  and  in  his  air  that  his 
eloquence  consisted.  An  inclination  of  that  hand 
which  had  gained  so  many  battles,  and  killed  so 
many  royalists,  was  more  persuasive  than  the 
periods  of  Cicero.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that 
it  was  his  incomparable  valor  that  brought  him  into 
notice,  and  which  conducted  him  gradually  to  the 
summit  of  greatness. 

He  commenced  by  throwing  himself,  as  a  volun- 
teer and  a  soldier  of  fortune,  into  the  town  of  Hull, 
besieged  by  the  king.  He  there  performed  some 
brilliant  and  valuable  services,  for  which  he  re- 
ceived a  gratuity  of  about  six  thousand  francs  from 
the  parliament.  The  present,  bestowed  by  parlia- 
ment upon  an  adventurer,  made  it  clear  that  the 
rebel  party  must  prevail.  The  king  could  not  give 
to  his  general  officers  what  the  parliament  gave  to 
volunteers.     With    money    and    fanaticism,    every- 


Dictionary.  3 1 

thing"  must  in  the  end  be  mastered.  Cromwell  was 
made  colonel.  His  great  talents  for  war  became  then 
so  conspicuous  that,  when  the  parliament  created 
the  earl  of  Manchester  general  of  its  forces,  Crom- 
well was  appointed  lieutenant-general,  without  his 
having  passed  through  the  intervening  ranks. 
Never  did  any  man  appear  more  worthy  of  com- 
mand. Never  was  seen  more  activity  and  skill,  more 
daring  and  more  resources,  than  in  Cromwell.  He 
is  wounded  at  the  battle  of  York,  and,  while  under- 
going the  first  dressing,  is  informed  that  his  com- 
mander, the  earl  of  Manchester,  is  retreating,  and 
the  battle  lost.  He  hastens  to  find  the  earl ;  dis- 
covers him  flying,  with  some  officers ;  catches  him 
by  the  arm,  and,  in  a  firm  and  dignified  tone,  he 
exclaims:  "My  lord,  you  mistake;  the  enemy  has 
not  taken  that  road."  He  reconducts  him  to  the 
field  of  battle ;  rallies,  during  the  night,  more  than 
twelve  thousand  men ;  harangues  them  in  the  nam.e 
of  God ;  cites  Moses,  Gideon,  and  Joshua ;  renews 
the  battle  at  daybreak  against  the  victorious  ro)^list 
army,  and  completely  defeats  it.  Such  a  man  must 
either  perish  or  obtain  the  mastery.  Almost  all  the 
officers  of  his  army  were  enthusiasts,  who  carried 
the  New  Testament  on  their  saddle-bows.  In  the 
army,  as  in  the  parliament,  nothing  was  spoken  of 
but  Babylon  destroyed,  building  up  the  worship  of 
Jerusalem,  and  breaking  the  image.  Cromwell, 
among  so  many  madmen,  was  no  longer  one  him- 
self, and  thought  it  better  to  govern  than  to  be  gov- 


32  Philosophical 

erned  by  them.  The  habit  of  preaching,  as  by  in- 
spiration, remained  with  him.  Figure  to  yourself  a 
fakir,  who,  after  putting  an  iron  girdle  round  his 
loins  in  penance,  takes  it  off  to  drub  the  ears  of  other 
fakirs.  Such  was  Cromwell.  He  becomes  as  in- 
triguing as  he  was  intrepid.  He  associates  with 
all  the  colonels  of  the  army,  and  thus  forms  among 
the  troops  a  republic  which  forces  the  commander 
to  resign.  Another  commander  is  appointed,  and 
him  he  disgusts.  He  governs  the  army,  and  through 
it  he  governs  the  parliament ;  which  he  at  last  com- 
pels to  make  him  commander.  All  this  is  much; 
but  the  essential  point  is  that  he  wins  all  the  battles 
he  fights  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland;  and 
wins  them,  not  consulting  his  own  security  while 
the  fight  rages,  but  always  charging  the  enemy,  ral- 
lying his  troops,  presenting  himself  everywhere, 
frequently  wounded,  killing  with  his  own  hands 
many  royalist  officers,  like  the  fiercest  soldier  in  the 
ranks. 

In  the  midst  of  this  dreadful  war  Cromwell  made 
love ;  he  went,  with  the  Bible  under  his  arm,  to  an 
assignation  with  the  wife  of  his  major-general, 
Lambert.  She  loved  the  earl  of  Holland,  who 
served  in  the  king's  army.  Cromwell  took  him 
prisoner  in  battle,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  bringing 
his  rival  to  the  block.  It  was  his  maxim  to  shed  the 
blood  of  every  important  enemy,  in  the  field  or  by 
the  hand  of  the  executioner.  He  always  increased 
his  power  by  always  daring  to  abuse  it ;    the  pro- 


Dictionary.  ^3 

foundness  of  his  plans  never  lessened  his  ferocious 
impetuosity.  He  went  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  drove  all  the  members  out,  one  after  another, 
making  them  defile  before  him.  As  they  passed, 
each  was  obliged  to  make  a  profound  reverence; 
one  of  them  was  passing  on  with  his  head  covered ; 
Cromwell  seized  his  hat  and  threw  it  down. 
"Learn,"  said  he,  "to  respect  me." 

When  he  had  outraged  all  kings  by  beheading 
his  own  legitimate  king,  and  he  began  himself  to 
reign,  he  sent  his  portrait  to  one  crowned  head, 
Christina,  queen  of  Sweden.  Marvel,  a  celebrated 
English  poet,  who  wrote  excellent  Latin  verses,  ac- 
companied his  portrait  with  six  lines,  in  which  he 
introduces  Cromwell  himself  speaking;  Cromwell 
corrected  these  two  last  verses : 

Ai  tibi  submittit  frontem  reverentior  umbra. 
Noil  sunt  hi  vultus  re_^ibus  usque  truces. 

The  spirit  of  the  whole  six  verses  may  be  g^ven 
thus : 

Les  armes  a  la  mainfai  defendu  les  lots  ; 
Utin  peuple  atcdacieux  fai  venge  la  querelle. 
Regardez  sans  fremir  cette  linage  fide  le : 
Mon  front  n' est  pas  toujours  Vepouvante  des  rots. 

'Twas  mine  by  arms  t'uphold  my  country's  laws; 
My  sword  maintained  a  lofty  people's  cause; 
With  less  of  fear  these  faithful  outlines  trace, 
Menace  of  kings  not  always  clouds  my  face. 

This  queen  was  the  first  to  acknowledge  him 
after  he  became  protector  of  the  three  kingdoms. 
Almost  all  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  sent  ambassa- 
dors to  their  brother  Cromwell — to  that  domestic  of 


34  Philosophical 

a  bishop,  who  had  just  brought  to  the  scaffold  a 
sovereign  related  to  them.  They  emulously  courted 
his  alliance.  Cardinal  Mazarin,  in  order  to  please 
him,  banished  from  France  the  two  sons  of  Charles 
L,  the  two  grandsons  of  Henry  IV.,  and  the  two 
cousins-german  of  Louis  XIV.  France  conquered 
Dunkirk  for  him,  and  the  keys  of  it  were  delivered 
into  his  possession.  After  his  death,  Louis  XIV. 
and  his  whole  court  went  into  mourning,  except 
mademoiselle,  who  dared  to  appear  in  the  circle  in 
colors,  and  alone  to  maintain  the  honor  of  her  race. 
No  king  was  ever  more  absolute  than  Cromwell. 
He  would  observe  "that  he  had  preferred  govern- 
ing under  the  name  of  protector  rather  than  under 
that  of  king,  because  the  English  were  aware  of  the 
limits  of  the  prerogative  of  a  king  of  England,  but 
knew  not  the  extent  of  that  of  a  protector."  This 
was  knowing  mankind,  who  are  governed  by 
opinion,  and  whose  opinion  depends  upon  a  name. 
He  had  conceived  a  profound  contempt  for  the  re- 
ligion to  which  he  owed  his  success.  An  anecdote, 
preserved  in  the  St.  John  family,  sufficiently  proves 
the  slight  regard  he  attached  to  that  instrument 
which  had  produced  such  mighty  effects  in  his 
hands.  He  was  drinking  once  in  company  with 
Ireton,  Fleetwood,  and  St.  John,  great  grandfather 
of  the  celebrated  Lord  Bolingbroke ;  a  bottle  of 
wine  was  to  be  uncorked,  and  the  corkscrew  fell 
under  the  table ;  they  all  looked  for  it,  and  were 
unable  to  find  it.     In  the  meantime  a  deputation 


Dictionary.  ^^ 

from  the  Presbyterian  churches  awaited  in  the  ante- 
chamber, and  an  usher  announced  them.  "Tell 
them,"  said  Cromwell,  ''that  I  have  retired,  and  that 
I  am  seeking  the  Lord."  This  was  the  expression 
employed  by  the  fanatics  for  going  to  prayers. 
Having  dismissed  the  troop  of  divines,  he  thus  ad- 
dressed his  companions :  "Those  fellows  think  we 
are  seeking  the  Lord,  while  we  are  only  seeking  a 
corkscrew." 

There  is  scarcely  any  example  in  Europe  of  a 
man  who.  from  so  low  a  beginning,  raised  himself 
to  such  eminence.  But  with  all  his  great  talents, 
what  did  he  consider  absolutely  essential  to  his  hap- 
piness ?  Power  he  obtained ;  but  was  he  happy  ? 
He  had  lived  in  poverty  and  disquiet  till  the  age  of 
forty-three ;  he  afterwards  plunged  into  blood, 
passed  his  life  in  trouble,  and  died  prematurely,  at 
the  age  of  fifty-seven.  With  this  life  let  any  one 
compare  that  of  a  Newton,  who  lived  fourscore 
years,  always  tranquil,  always  honored,  always  the 
light  of  all  thinking  beings ;  beholding  every  day 
an  accession  to  his  fame,  his  character,  his  fortune ; 
completely  free  both  from  care  and  remorse  ;  and  let 
him  decide  whose  was  the  happier  lot. 

O  curas  hojnimiDt!  O  qua7tiu7?t  est  in  rebus  inane t 
O  human  cares!  O  mortal  toil  how  vain! 

SECTION   II. 

Oliver  Cromwell  was  regarded  with  admiration 
by  the  Puritans  and  Independents  of  England ;  he 
is  still  their  hero.     But  Richard  Cromwell,  his  son, 


^6  Philosophical 

is  the  man  for  me.  The  first  was  a  fanatic  who  in 
the  present  day  would  be  hissed  down  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  on  uttering  any  one  of  the  unintelli- 
gible absurdities  which  he  delivered  with  such  con- 
fidence before  other  fanatics  who  listened  to  him 
with  open  mouth  and  staring  eyes,  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord.  If  he  were  to  say  that  they  must  seek 
the  Lord,  and  fight  the  battles  of  the  Lord — if  he 
were  to  introduce  the  Jewish  jargon  into  the  par- 
liament of  England,  to  the  eternal  disgrace  of  the 
human  understanding,  he  would  be  much  more  like- 
ly to  be  conducted  to  Bedlam  than  to  be  appointed 
the  commander  of  armies. 

Brave  he  unquestionably  was — ^and  so  are  wolves ; 
there  are  even  some  monkeys  as  fierce  as  tigers. 
From  a  fanatic  he  became  an  able  politician ;  in  other 
words,  from  a  wolf  he  became  a  fox,  and  the  knave, 
craftily  mounting  from  the  first  steps  where  the  mad 
enthusiasm  of  the  times  had  placed  him,  to  the  sum- 
mit of  greatness,  walked  over  the  heads  of  the  pros- 
trated fanatics.  He  reigned,  but  he  lived  in  the  hor- 
rors of  alarm  and  had  neither  cheerful  days  nor 
tranquil  nights.  The  consolations  of  friendship  and 
society  never  approached  him.  He  died  prema- 
turely, more  deserving,  beyond  a  doubt,  of  public 
execution  than  the  monarch  whom,  from  a  window 
of  his  own  palace,  he  caused  to  be  led  out  to  the 
scaffold. 

Richard  Cromwell,  on  the  contrary,  was  gentle 
and  prudent  and  refused  to  keep  his  father's  power 


Dictionary.  37 

at  the  expense  of  the  Hves  of  three  or  four  factious 
persons  whom  he  might  have  sacrificed  to  his  am- 
bition. He  preferred  becoming  a  private  individual 
to  being  an  assassin  with  supreme  power.  He  re- 
linquished the  protectorship  without  regret,  to  live 
as  a  subject ;  and  in  the  tranquillity  of  a  country  life 
he  enjoyed  health  and  possessed  his  soul  in  peace  for 
ninety  years,  beloved  by  his  neighbors,  to  whom  he 
was  a  peacemaker  and  a  father. 

Say,  reader,  had  you  to  choose  between  the  des- 
tiny of  the  father  and  that  of  the  son,  which  would 
you  prefer? 

CUISSAGE. 

Dion  Cassius,  that  flatterer  of  Augustus  and  de- 
tractor from  Cicero,  because  Cicero  was  the  friend 
of  liberty — that  dry  and  diffuse  writer  and  gazet- 
teer of  popular  rumors,  Dion  Cassius,  reports  that 
certain  senators  were  of  opinion  that  in  order  to 
recompense  Caesar  for  all  the  evil  which  he  had 
brought  upon  the  commonwealth  it  would  be  right, 
at  the  age  of  fifty-seven,  to  allow  him  to  honor  with 
his  favors  all  the  ladies  who  took  his  fancy.  Men 
are  still  found  who  credit  this  absurdity.  Even 
the  author  of  the  "Spirit  of  Laws"  takes  it  for  a 
truth  and  speaks  of  it  as  of  a  decree  which  would 
have  passed  the  Roman  senate  but  for  the  modesty 
of  the  dictator,  who  suspected  that  he  was  not  alto- 
gether prepared  for  the  accession  of  so  much  good 
fortune.     But  if  the  Roman  emperors  attained  not 


38  Philosophical 

this  right  by  a  soiatus-consultuni,  duly  founded 
upon  a  plcbiscifiDii,  it  is  very  likely  that  they  fully 
enjoyed  it  by  the  courtesy  of  the  ladies.  The  Mar- 
cus Aureliuses  and  the  Julians,  to  be  sure,  exercised 
not  this  right,  but  all  the  rest  extended  it  as  widely 
as  they  were  able. 

It  is  astonishing  that  in  Christian  Europe  a  kind 
of  feudal  law  for  a  long  time  existed,  or  at  least  it 
was  deemed  a  customary  usage,  to  regard  the  vir- 
ginity of  a  female  vassal  as  the  property  of  the  lord. 
The  first  night  of  the  nuptials  of  the  daughter  of  his 
Z'illein  belonged  to  him  without  dispute. 

This  right  was  established  in  the  same  manner 
as  that  of  walking  with  a  falcon  on  the  fist,  and  of 
being  saluted  with  incense  at  mass.  The  lords,  in- 
deed, did  not  enact  that  the  zuk'cs  of  their  villeins 
belonged  to  them ;  they  confined  themselves  to  the 
daughters,  the  reason  of  which  is  obvious.  Girls 
are  bashful  and  sometimes  might  exhibit  reluctance. 
This,  however,  yielded  at  once  to  the  majesty  of  the 
laws,  when  the  condescending  baron  deemed  them 
worthy  the  honor  of  personally  enforcing  their  prac- 
tice. 

It  is  asserted  that  this  curious  jurisprudence  com- 
menced in  Scotland,  and  I  willingly  believe  that  the 
Scotch  lords  had  a  still  more  absolute  power  over 
their  clans  than  even  the  German  and  French  barons 
over  their  vassals. 

It  is  undoubted  that  some  abbots  and  bishops 
enjoyed  this  privilege  in  their  quality  of  temporal 


Dictionary.  39 

lords,  and  it  is  not  very  long  since  that  these  prel- 
ates compounded  their  prerogative  for  acknowledg- 
ments in  money,  to  which  they  have  just  as  much 
right  as  to  the  virginity  of  the  girls. 

But  let  it  be  well  remarked  that  this  excess  of 
tyranny  was  never  sanctioned  by  any  public  law. 
If  a  lord  or  a  prelate  had  cited  before  a  regular 
tribunal  a  girl  affianced  to  one  of  his  vassals,  in 
claim  of  her  quit-rent,  he  would  doubtless  have  lost 
his  cause  and  costs. 

Let  us  seize  this  occasion  to  rest  assured  that  no 
partially  civilized  people  ever  established  formal 
laws  against  morals ;  I  do  not  believe  that  a  single 
instance  of  it  can  be  furnished.  Abuses  creep  in  and 
are  borne :  they  pass  as  customs  and  travellers  mis- 
take them  for  fundamental  laws.  It  is  said  that  in 
Asia  greasy  Mahometan  saints  march  in  procession 
entirely  naked  and  that  devout  females  crowd  round 
them  to  kiss  what  is  not  worthy  to  be  named,  but 
I  defy  any  one  to  discover  a  passage  in  the  Koran 
which  justifies  this  brutalit}'. 

The  phallus,  which  the  Egyptians  carry  in  pro- 
cession, may  be  quoted  in  order  to  confound  me,  as 
well  as  the  idol  Juggernaut,  of  the  Indians.  I  re- 
ply that  these  ceremonies  war  no  more  against  mor- 
als than  circumcision  at  the  age  of  eight  days.  In 
some  of  our  towns  the  holy  foreskin  has  been  borne 
in  procession,  and  it  is  preserved  yet  in  certain  sac- 
risties without  this  piece  of  droller}^  causing  the 
least  disturbance  in  families.     Still,  I  am  convinced 


40  Philosophical 

that  no  council  or  act  of  parliament  ever  ordained 
this  homage  to  the  holy  foreskin. 

I  call  a  public  law  which  deprives  me  of  my  prop- 
erty, which  takes  away  my  wife  and  gives  her  to  an- 
other, a  law  against  morals;  and  I  am  certain  that 
such  a  law  is  impossible.  Some  travellers  maintain 
that  in  Lapland  husbands,  out  of  politeness,  make  an 
ofifer  of  their  wives.  Out  of  still  greater  politeness, 
I  believe  them;  but  I  nevertheless  assert,  that  they 
never  found  this  rule  of  good  manners  in  the  legal 
code  of  Lapland,  any  more  than  in  the  constitutions 
of  Germany,  in  the  ordinances  of  the  king  of  France, 
or  in  the  "Statutes  at  Large"  of  England,  any  posi- 
tive law,  adjudging  the  right  of  cuissage  to  the  bar- 
ons. Absurd  and  barbarous  laws  may  be  found 
everywhere ;    formal  laws  against  morals  nowhere. 

CURATE   (OF  THE  COUNTRY). 

A  CURATE — but  why  do  I  say  a  curate? — even  an 
imam,  a  talapoin,  or  brahmin  ought  to  have  the  means 
of  living  decently.  The  priest  in  every  country 
ought  to  be  supported  by  the  altar  since  he  serves 
the  public.  Some  fanatic  rogue  may  assert  that  I 
place  the  curate  and  the  brahmin  on  the  same  level 
and  associate  truth  with  imposture ;  but  I  compare 
only  the  services  rendered  to  society,  the  labor,  and 
the  recompense. 

I  maintain  that  whoever  exercises  a  laborious 
function  ought  to  be  well  paid  by  his  fellow-citizens. 
I  do  not  assert  that  he  ought  to  amass  riches,  sup 


Dictionary.  41 

with  Lucullus,  or  be  as  insolent  as  Clodius.  I  pity 
the  case  of  a  country  curate  who  is  obliged  to  dis- 
pute a  sheaf  of  corn  with  his  parishioner;  to  plead 
against  him ;  to  exact  from  him  the  tenth  of  his 
peas  and  beans;  to  be  hated  and  to  hate,  and  to 
consume  his  miserable  life  in  miserable  quarrels 
which  engross  the  mind  as  much  as  they  embitter  it. 

I  still  more  pity  the  inconsistent  lot  of  a  curate, 
whom  monks,  claiming  the  great  tithes,  audaciously 
reward  with  a  salary  of  forty  ducats  per  annum  for 
undertaking,  throughout  the  year,  the  labor  of  visit- 
ing for  three  miles  round  his  abode,  by  day  and  by 
night,  in  hail,  rain,  or  snow,  the  most  disagreeable 
and  often  the  most  useless  functions,  while  the  ab- 
bot or  great  tithe-holder  drinks  his  rich  wine  of 
Volney,  Beaune,  or  Chambertin,  eats  his  partridges 
and  pheasants,  sleeps  upon  his  down  bed  with  a  fair 
neighbor,  and  builds  a  palace.  The  disproportion  is 
too  great. 

It  has  been  taken  for  granted  since  the  days  of 
Charlemagne  that  the  clerg)%  besides  their  own 
lands,  ought  to  possess  a  tenth  of  the  lands  of  other 
people,  which  tenth  is  at  least  a  quarter,  computing 
the  expense  of  culture.  To  establish  this  payment 
it  is  claimed  on  a  principle  of  divine  right.  Did  God 
descend  on  earth  to  give  a  quarter  of  His  property 
to  the  abbey  of  Monte  Cassino,  to  the  abbey  of  St. 
Denis,  to  the  abbey  of  Fulda?  Not  that  I  know, 
but  it  has  been  discovered  that  formerly,  in  the  des- 
ert of  Ethan,  Horeb,  and  Kadesh  Barnea,  the  Le- 


42  Philosophical 

vites  were  favored  with  forty-eight  cities  and  a  tenth 
of  all  which  the  earth  produced  besides. 

Very  well,  great  tithe-holders,  go  to  Kadesh  Bar- 
nea  and  inhabit  the  forty-eight  cities  in  that  unin- 
habitable desert.  Take  the  tenth  of  the  flints  which 
the  land  produces  there,  and  great  good  may  they  do 
you.  But  Abraham  liaving  combated  for  Sodom, 
gave  a  tenth  of  the  spoil  to  Melchizedek,  priest  and 
king  of  Salem.  Very  good,  combat  you  also  for 
Sodom,  but,  like  Melchizedek,  take  not  from  me  the 
produce  of  the  corn  which  I  have  sowed. 

In  a  Christian  country  containing  twelve  hundred 
thousand  square  leagues  throughout  the  whole  of 
the  North,  in  part  of  Germany,  in  Holland,  and  in 
Switzerland,  the  clergy  are  paid  with  money  from 
tlie  public  treasury.  The  tribunals  resound  not  there 
with  lawsuits  between  landlords  and  priests,  between 
the  great  and  the  little  tithe-holders,  between  the 
pastor,  plaintiff,  and  the  flock  defendants,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  third  Council  of  the  Lateran,  of  which 
the  said  flocks  defendant  have  never  heard  a  syllable. 

The  king  of  Naples  this  year  (1772)  has  just 
abolished  tithes  in  one  of  his  provinces :  the  clergy 
are  better  paid  and  the  province  blesses  him.  The 
Egyptian  priests,  it  is  said,  claimed  not  this  tenth, 
but  then,  it  is  observed  that  they  possessed  a  third 
part  of  the  land  of  Egypt  as  their  own.  Oh,  stupen- 
dous miracle !  oh,  thing  most  difficult  to  be  con- 
ceived, that  possessing  one-third  of  the  country  they 
did  not  quickly  acquire  the  other  two! 


Dictionary.  43 

Believe  not,  dear  reader,  that  the  Jews,  who  were 
a  stiff-necked  people,  never  complained  of  the  ex- 
tortion of  the  tenths,  or  tithe.  Give  yourself  the 
trouble  to  consult  the  Talmud  of  Babylon,  and  if 
you  understand  not  the  Chaldsean,  read  the  transla- 
tion, with  notes  of  Gilbert  Gaumin,  the  whole  of 
which  was  printed  by  the  care  of  Fabricius.  You 
will  there  peruse  the  adventure  of  a  poor  widow 
with  the  High  Priest  Aaron,  and  learn  how  the 
quarrel  of  this  widow^  became  the  cause  of  the  quar- 
rel of  Koran,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  on  the  one  side, 
and  Aaron  on  the  other. 

"A  widow  possessed  only  a  single  sheep  which 
she  wished  to  shear.  Aaron  came  and  took  the  wool 
for  himself:  Tt  belongs  to  me,'  said  he,  'according 
to  the  law,  thou  shalt  give  the  first  of  the  wool  to 
God.'  The  widow,  in  tears,  implored  the  protection 
of  Koran.  Koran  applied  to  Aaron  but  his  entreat- 
ies were  fruitless.  Aaron  replies  that  the  wool  be- 
longs to  him.  Koran  gives  some  money  to  the 
widow  and  retires,  filled  with  indignation. 

"Some  time  after,  the  sheep  produces  a  lamb. 
Aaron  returns  and  carries  away  the  lamb.  The 
widow  runs  weeping  again  to  Koran,  who  in  vain 
implores  Aaron.  The  high  priest  answers,  Tt  is 
written  in  the  law,  every  first-born  male  in  thy  flock 
belongs  to  God.'  He  eats  the  lamb  and  Koran  again 
retires  in  a  rage. 

"The  widow,  in  despair,  kills  her  sheep ;  Aaron 
returns  once  more  and  takes  away  the  shoulder  and 


44  Philosophical 

the  breast.  Koran  again  complains.  Aaron  replies : 
'It  is  written,  thou  shalt  give  unto  the  priests  the 
shoulder,  the  two  cheeks,  and  the  maw.' 

"The  widow  could  no  longer  contain  her  affliction 
and  said,  'Anathema,'  to  the  sheep,  upon  which 
Aaron  observed,  'It  is  written,  all  that  is  anathema 
(cursed)  in  Israel  belongs  to  thee;'  and  took  away 
the  sheep  altogether." 

What  is  not  so  pleasant,  yet  very  remarkable,  is 
that  in  a  suit  between  the  clerg>'  of  Rheims  and  the 
citizens,  this  instance  from  the  Talmud  was  cited 
by  the  advocate  of  the  citizens.  Gaumin  asserts  that 
he  witnessed  it.  In  the  meantime  it  may  be  an- 
swered that  the  tithe-holders  do  not  take  all  from 
the  people,  the  tax-gatherers  will  not  suffer  it.  To 
every  one  his  share  is  just. 

CURIOSITY. 

Suave,  mart  magna  turban tibus  aequora  ventis, 
E  terra  magnum  aiterius  spectare  laborem  ; 
Non  quia  vexari  quemquam  est  juciaida  voluptas, 
Sed  quibus  ipse  malis  careas,  quia  cernere  suave  est. 
Suave  etiain  belli  certamina  magna  tueri 
Per  campos  instructa  tua  sine  parte  pericli; 
Sed  nil  dulcius  est,  bene  qtiam  munita  tenere 
Edita  doctrina  sapieiitum  templa  serena 
Despicere  tinde  queas  alios,  passimque  videre 
Errare,  atque  viam  palantes  quaercre  vitae, 
Cert  are  ingenio,  contendere  nobilitate. 
Nodes  atque  dies  niti praestante  labore 
Ad sumtnas  emeigere  opes,  rerumque potiri. 
O  miseras  hominum  mentes I  O pectora  caeca! 

'Tis  pleasant,  when  the  seas  are  rough,  to  stand 
And  view  another's  danger,  safe  at  land; 
Not  'cause  he's  troubled,  but  'tis  sweet  to  see 
Those  cares  and  fears,  from  which  ourselves  are  free; 


Dictionary.  45 

*Tis  also  pleasant  to  behold  from  far 

How  troops  engage,  secure  ourselves  from  war. 

But,  above  ail,  'tis  pleasantest  to  get 

The  top  of  high  philosophy,  and  set 

On  the  calm,  peaceful,  flourishing  head  of  it; 

Whence  we  may  view,  deep,  wondrous  deep  below, 

How  poor  mistaken  mortals  wandering  go, 

Seeking  the  path  io  happiness;  some  aim 

At  learning,  not  nobility,  or  fame; 

Others,  with  cares  and  dangers  vie  each  hour 

To  reach  the  top  of  wealth  and  sovereign  power. 

Blind,  wretched  man,  in  what  dark  paths  of  strife 

We  walk  this  little  journey  of  our  life. 

— Creech's  Lucretius. 

I  ASK  your  pardon,  Lucretius !  I  suspect  tha^ 
you  are  here  as  mistaken  in  morals  as  you  are  always 
mistaken  in  physics.  In  my  opinion  it  is  curiosity 
alone  that  induces  people  to  hasten  to  the  shore  to 
see  a  vessel  in  danger  of  being  overwhelmed  in  a 
tempest.  The  case  has  happened  to  myself,  and  I 
solemnly  assure  you  that  my  pleasure,  mingled  as 
it  was  with  uneasiness  and  distress,  did  not  at  all 
arise  from  reflection,  nor  originate  in  any  secret 
comparison  between  my  own  security  and  the  dan- 
ger of  the  unfortunate  crew.  I  was  moved  by  cu- 
riosity and  pity. 

At  the  battle  of  Fontenoy  little  boys  and  girls 
climbed  up  the  surrounding  trees  to  have  a  view  of 
the  slaughter.  Ladies  ordered  seats  to  be  placed  for 
them  on  a  bastion  of  the  city  of  Liege  that  they 
might  enjoy  the  spectacle  at  the  battle  of  Rocoux. 

When  I  said,  "Happy  they  who  view  in  peace  the 
gathering  storm."  the  happiness  I  had  in  view  con- 
sists in  tranquillity  and  the  search  of  truth,  and  not 
in   seeing   the   sufferings    of   thinking  beings,    op- 


46  Philosophical 

pressed  by  fanatics  or  hypocrites  under  persecution 
for  having  sought  it. 

Could  we  suppose  an  angel  flying  on  six  beauti- 
ful wings  from  the  height  of  the  Empyrean,  setting 
out  to  take  a  view  through  some  loophole  of  hell 
of  the  torments  and  contortions  of  the  damned,  and 
congratulating  himself  on  feeling  nothing  of  their 
inconceivable  agonies,  such  an  angel  would  much 
resemble  the  character  of  Beelzebub. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  nature  of  angels  because 
I  am  only  a  man  ;  divines  alone  are  acquainted  with 
them ;  but,  as  a  man,  I  think,  from  my  own  experi- 
ence and  also  from  that  of  all  my  brother  drivellers, 
that  people  do  not  flock  to  any  spectacle,  of  what- 
ever kind,  but  from  pure  curiosity. 

This  seems  to  me  so  true  that  if  the  exhibition  be 
ever  so  admirable  men  at  last  get  tired  of  it.  The 
Parisian  public  scarcely  go  any  longer  to  see  "Tar- 
tuff  c''  the  most  masterly  of  Moliere's  masterpieces. 
Why  is  it  ?  Because  they  have  gone  often  ;  because 
they  have  it  by  heart.  It  is  the  same  with  "Andro- 
mache." 

Perrin  Dandin  is  unfortunately  right  when  he 
proposes  to  the  young  Isabella  to  take  her  to  see  the 
method  of  "putting  to  the  torture;"  it  serves,  he 
says,  to  pass  away  an  hour  or  two.  If  this  anticipa- 
tion of  the  execution,  frequently  more  cruel  than 
the  execution  itself,  were  a  public  spectacle,  the 
whole  city  of  Toulouse  would  have  rushed  in  crowds 
to  behold  the  venerable  Calas  twice  suflfering  those 


Dictionary.  47 

execrable  torments,  at  the  instance  of  the  attorney- 
general.  Penitents,  black,  white,  and  gray,  married 
women,  girls,  stewards  of  the  floral  games,  students, 
lackeys,  female  servants,  girls  of  the  town,  doctors  of 
the  canon  law  would  have  been  all  squeezed  to- 
gether. At  Paris  we  must  have  been  almost  suffo- 
cated in  order  to  see  the  unfortunate  General  Lally 
pass  along  in  a  dung  cart,  with  a  six-inch  gag  in  his 
mouth. 

But  if  these  tragedies  of  cannibals,  which  are 
sometimes  performed  before  the  most  frivolous  of 
nations,  and  the  one  most  ignorant  in  general  of  the 
principles  of  jurisprudence  and  equity ;  if  the  spec- 
tacles, like  those  of  St.  Bartholomew,  exhibited  by 
tigers  to  monkeys  and  the  copies  of  it  on  a  smaller 
scale  were  renewed  every  day,  men  would  soon  de- 
sert such  a  country ;  they  would  fly  from  it  with 
horror;  they  would  abandon  forever  the  infernal 
land  where  such  barbarities  were  common. 

When  little  boys  and  girls  pluck  the  feathers 
from  their  sparrows  it  is  merely  from  the  impulse  of 
curiosity,  as  when  they  dissect  the  dresses  of  their 
dolls.  It  is  this  passion  alone  which  produces  the 
immense  attendance  at  public  executions.  "Strange 
eagerness,"  as  some  tragic  author  remarks,  "to  be- 
hold the  wretched." 

I  remember  being  in  Paris  when  Damiens  suf- 
fered a  death  the  most  elaborate  and  frightful  that 
can  be  conceived.  All  the  windows  in  the  city  which 
bore  upon  the  spot  were  engaged  at  a  high  price  by 


48  Philosophical 

ladies,  not  one  of  whom,  assuredly,  made  the  con- 
soling reflection  that  her  own  breasts  were  not  torn 
by  pincers ;  that  melted  lead  and  boiling  pitch  were 
not  poured  upon  wounds  of  her  own,  and  that  her 
own  Hmbs,  dislocated  and  bleeding,  were  not  drawn 
asunder  by  four  horses.  One  of  the  executioners 
judged  more  correctly  than  Lucretius,  for,  when 
one  of  the  academicians  of  Paris  tried  to  get  within 
the  enclosure  to  examine  what  was  passing  more 
closely,  and  was  forced  back  by  one  of  the  guards, 
"Let  the  gentleman  go  in,"  said  he,  "he  is  an  ama- 
teur." That  is  to  say,  he  is  inquisitive ;  it  is  not 
through  mahce  that  he  comes  here ;  it  is  not  from 
any  reflex  consideration  of  self  to  revel  in  the  pleas- 
ure of  not  being  himself  quartered ;  it  is  only  from 
curiosity,  as  men  go  to  see  experiments  in  natural 
philosophy. 

Curiosity  is  natural  to  man,  to  monkeys,  and  to 
little  dogs.  Take  a  little  dog  with  you  in  your  car- 
riage, he  will  continually  be  putting  up  his  paws 
against  the  door  to  see  what  is  passing.  A  monke} 
searches  everywhere,  and  has  the  air  of  examining 
everj'thing.  As  to  men,  you  know  how  they  arc 
constituted :  Rome,  London,  Paris,  all  pass  theii 
time  in  inquiring  what's  the  news? 

CUSTOMS— USAGES. 

There  are,  it  is  said,  one  hundred  and  forty-four 

customs  in  France  which  possess  the  force  of  law. 

These  laws  are  almost  all  different  in  different 


Dictionary.  49 

places.  A  man  that  travels  in  this  country  changes 
his  law  almost  as  often  as  he  changes  his  horses.  The 
majority  of  these  customs  were  not  reduced  to  writ- 
ing until  the  time  of  Charles  VII.,  the  reason  of 
which  probably  was  that  few  people  knew  how  to 
write.  They  then  copied  a  part  of  the  customs  of 
a  part  of  Ponthieu,  but  this  great  work  was  not 
aided  by  the  Picards  until  Charles  VIII.  There 
were  but  sixteen  digests  in  the  time  of  Louis  XII., 
but  our  jurisprudence  is  so  improved  there  are  now 
but  few  customs  which  have  not  a  variety  of  com- 
mentators, all  of  whom  are  of  different  opinions. 
There  are  already  twenty-six  upon  the  customs  of 
Paris.  The  judges  know  not  which  to  prefer,  but, 
to  put  them  at  their  ease  the  custom  of  Paris  has 
been  just  turned  into  verse.  It  was  in  this  manner 
that  the  Delphian  pythoness  of  old  declared  her 
oracles. 

Weights  and  measures  dififer  as  much  as  customs, 
so  that  which  is  correct  in  the  faubourg  of  Mont- 
martre,  is  otherwise  in  the  abbey  of  St.  Denis.  The 
LxDrd  pity  us! 

CYRUS. 

Many  learned  men,  and  Rollin  among  the  num- 
ber, in  an  age  in  which  reason  is  cultivated,  have  as- 
sured us  that  Javan,  who  is  supposed  to  be  the  father 
of  the  Greeks,  was  the  grandson  of  Noah.  I  be- 
lieve it  precisely  as  I  believe  that  Persius  was  the 
founder  of  the  kingdom  of  Persia  and  Niger  of 

Vol.  8—4 


50  Philosophical 

Nigritia.  The  only  tiling  which  grieves  me  is  that 
the  Greeks  have  never  known  anything  of  Noah,  the 
venerable  author  of  their  race.  I  have  elsewhere 
noted  my  astonishment  and  chagrin  that  our  father 
Adam  should  be  absolutely  unknown  to  everybody 
from  Japan  to  the  Strait  of  Le  Maire,  except  to  a 
small  people  to  whom  he  was  known  too  late.  The 
science  of  genealogy  is  doubtless  in  the  highest  de- 
gree certain,  but  exceedingly  difficult. 

It  is  neither  upon  Javan.  upon  Noah,  nor  upon 
Adam  that  my  doubts  fall  at  present ;  it  is  upon 
Cyrus,  and  I  seek  not  which  of  the  fables  in  regard 
to  him  is  preferable,  that  of  Herodotus,  of  Ctesias, 
of  Xenophon,  of  Diodorus,  or  of  Justin,  all  of  which 
contradict  one  another.  Neither  do  I  ask  why  it  is 
obstinately  determined  to  give  the  name  of  Cyrus  to 
a  barbarian  called  Khosrou,  and  those  of  Cyropolis 
and  Persepolis  to  cities  that  never  bore  them. 

I  drop  all  that  has  been  said  of  the  grand  Cyrus, 
including  the  romance  of  that  name,  and  the  travels 
which  the  Scottish  Ramsay  made  him  undertake, 
and  simply  inquire  into  some  instructions  of  his  to 
the  Jews,  of  which  that  people  make  mention. 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  no  author  has 
said  a  word  of  the  Jews  in  the  history  of  Cyrus,  and 
that  the  Jews  alone  venture  to  notice  themselves,  in 
speaking  of  this  prince. 

They  resemble,  in  some  degree,  certain  people, 
who,  alluding  to  individuals  of  a  rank  superior  to 
their  own  say,  we  know  the  gentlemen  but  the  gen- 


Dictionary.  51 

tiemen  know  not  us.  It  is  the  same  with  Alexander 
in  the  narratives  of  the  Jews.  No  historian  of  Alex- 
ander has  mixed  up  his  name  with  that  of  the  Jews, 
but  Josephus  fails  not  to  assert  that  Alexander  came 
to  pay  his  respects  at  Jerusalem ;  that  he  wor- 
shipped, I  know  not  what  Jewish  pontiff,  called 
Jaddus,  who  had  formerly  predicted  to  him  the  con- 
quest of  Persia  in  a  dream.  Petty  people  are  often 
visionary  in  this  way :  the  great  dream  less  of  their 
greatness. 

When  Tarik  conquered  Spain  the  vanquished  said 
they  had  foretold  it.  They  would  have  said  the  same 
thing  to  Genghis,  to  Tamerlane,  and  to  Mahomet  II. 

God  forbid  that  I  should  compare  the  Jewish 
prophets  to  the  predictors  of  good  fortune,  who  pay 
their  court  to  conquerors  by  foretelling  them  that 
which  has  come  to  pass.  I  merely  observe  that  the 
Jews  produce  some  testimony  from  their  nation  in 
respect  to  the  actions  of  Cyrus  about  one  hundred 
and  sixty  years  before  he  was  born. 

It  is  said,  in  the  forty-fifth  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord  to  His  anointed — His  Christ 
— Cyrus,  whose  right  hand  I  have  holden  to  subdue 
nations  before  him,  and  I  will  loosen  the  loins  of 
kings  to  open  before  him  the  two-leaved  gates,  and 
the  gates  shall  not  be  shut.  I  will  go  before  thee 
and  make  the  crooked  places  straight ;  I  will  break  in 
pieces  the  gates  of  brass  and  cut  in  sunder  the  bars 
of  iron.  And  I  will  give  thee  the  treasures  of  dark- 
ness and  hidden  riches  of  secret  places  that  thou 


52  Philosophical 

mayest  know  that  I  the  Lord,  who  call  thee  by  thy 
name,  am  the  God  of  Israel,"  etc. 

Some  learned  men  have  scarcely  been  able  to  di- 
gest the  fact  of  the  Lord  honoring  with  the  name  of 
His  Christ  an  idolater  of  the  religion  of  Zoroaster. 
They  even  dare  to  say  that  the  Jews,  in  the  manner 
of  all  the  weak  who  flatter  the  powerful,  invented 
predictions  in  favor  of  Cyrus. 

These  learned  persons  respect  Daniel  no  more 
than  Isaiah,  but  treat  all  the  prophecies  attributed  to 
the  latter  with  similar  contempt  to  that  manifested 
by  St.  Jerome  for  the  adventures  of  Susannah,  of 
Bel  and  the  Dragon,  and  of  the  three  children  in  the 
fiery  furnace. 

The  sages  in  question  seem  not  to  be  penetrated 
with  sufficient  esteem  for  the  prophets.  Many  of 
them  even  pretend  that  to  see  clearly  the  future  is 
metaphysically  impossible.  To  see  that  which  is 
not,  say  they,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  and  as  the 
future  exists  not,  it  consequently  cannot  be  seen. 
They  add  that  frauds  of  this  nature  abound  in  all 
nations,  and,  finally,  that  everything  is  to  be  doubted 
which  is  recorded  in  ancient  history. 

They  observe  that  if  there  was  ever  a  formal 

prophecy  it  is  that  of  the  discovery  of  America  in  the 

tragedy  of  Seneca : 

Venient  annis 
Scecula  seris  quibus  oceanus 
Vincula  rerum  laxet,  et  ingens 
Patent  tellus,  .... 

A  time  may  arrive  when  ocean  will  loosen  the 


Dictionary.  53 

chains  of  nature  and  lay  open  a  vast  world.  The 
four  stars  of  the  southern  pole  are  advanced  still 
more  clearly  in  Dante,  yet  no  one  takes  either  Seneca 
or  Dante  for  diviners. 

As  to  Cyrus,  it  is  difficult  to  know  whether  he 
died  nobly  or  had  his  head  cut  off  by  Tomyris,  but 
I  am  anxious,  I  confess,  that  the  learned  men  may 
be  right  who  claim  the  head  of  Cyrus  was  cut  off. 
It  is  not  amiss  that  these  illustrious  robbers  on  the 
highway  of  nations  who  pillage  and  deluge  the  earth 
with  blood,  should  be  occasionally  chastised. 

Cyrus  has  always  been  the  subject  of  remark, 
Xenophon  began  and,  unfortunately,  Ramsay  ended. 
Lastly,  to  show  the  sad  fate  which  sometimes  attends 
heroes,  Danchet  has  made  him  the  subject  of  a 
tragedy. 

This  tragedy  is  entirely  unknown ;  the  "Cyro- 
psedia"  of  Xenophon  is  more  popular  because  it  is 
in  Greek.  The  "Travels  of  Cyrus"  are  less  so,  al- 
though printed  in  French  and  English,  and  wonder- 
fully erudite. 

The  pleasantry  of  the  romance  entitled  "The 
Travels  of  Cyrus,"  consists  in  its  discovery  of  a 
Messiah  everywhere — ^at  Memphis,  at  Babylon,  at 
Ecbatana,  and  at  Tyre,  as  at  Jerusalem,  and  as  much 
in  Plato  as  in  the  gospel.  The  author  having  been  a 
Quaker,  an  Anabaptist,  an  Anglican,  and  a  Presby- 
terian, had  finally  become  a  Fenelonist  at  Cambray. 
under  the  illustrious  author  of  "Telemachus."  Hav- 
ing since  been  made  preceptor  to  the  child  of  a  great 


54  Philosophical 

nobleman,  he  thought  himself  born  to  instruct  and 
govern  the  universe,  and,  in  consequence,  gives  les- 
sons to  Cyrus  in  order  to  render  him  at  once  the  best 
king  and  the  most  orthodox  theologian  in  existence. 
These  two  rare  qualities  appear  to  lack  the  grace  of 
congruity. 

Ramsay  leads  his  pupil  to  the  school  of  Zoroas- 
ter and  then  to  that  of  the  young  Jew,  Daniel,  the 
greatest  philosopher  who  ever  existed.  He  not  only 
explained  dreams,  which  is  the  acme  of  human 
science,  but  discovered  and  interpreted  even  such 
as  had  been  forgotten,  which  none  but  he  could  ever 
accomplish.  It  might  be  expected  that  Daniel  would 
present  the  beautiful  Susannah  to  the  prince,  it  be- 
ing in  the  natural  manner  of  romance,  but  he  did 
nothing  of  the  kind. 

Cyrus,  in  return,  has  some  very  long  conversa- 
tions with  Nebuchadnezzar  while  he  was  an  ox,  dur- 
ing which  transformation  Ramsay  makes  Nebuchad- 
nezzar ruminate  like  a  profound  theologian. 

How  astonishing  that  the  prince  for  whom  this 
work  was  composed  preferred  the  chase  and  the 
opera  to  perusing  it ! 

DANTE. 

You  wish  to  become  acquainted  with  Dante.  The 
Italians  call  him  divine,  but  it  is  a  mysterious  di- 
vinity; few  men  understand  his  oracles,  and  al- 
though there  are  commentators,  that  may  be  an  addi- 


Dictionary.  55 

tlonal  reason  why  he  is  Httle  comprehended.  His 
reputation  will  last  because  he  is  little  read.  Twenty 
pointed  things  in  him  are  known  by  rote,  which  spare 
people  the  trouble  of  being  acquainted  with  the  re- 
mainder. 

The  divine  Dante  was  an  unfortunate  person. 
Imagine  not  that  he  was  divine  in  his  own  day ;  no 
one  is  a  prophet  at  home.  It  is  true  he  was  a  prior 
— not  a  prior  of  monks,  but  a  prior  of  Florence, 
that  is  to  say,  one  of  its  senators. 

He  was  born  in  1260,  when  the  arts  began  to 
flourish  in  his  native  land.  Florence,  like  Athens, 
abounded  in  greatness,  wit,  levity,  inconstancy,  and 
faction.  The  white  faction  was  in  great  credit;  it 
was  called  after  a  Signora  Bianca.  The  opposing 
party  was  called  the  blacks,  in  contradistinction. 
These  two  parties  sufficed  not  for  the  Florentines ; 
they  had  also  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines.  The  greater 
part  of  the  whites  were  Ghibellines,  attached  to  the 
party  of  the  emperors  ;  the  blacks,  on  the  other  hand, 
sided  with  the  Guelphs,  the  partisans  of  the  popes. 

All  these  factions  loved  liberty,  but  did  all  they 
could  to  destroy  it.  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  wished 
to  profit  by  these  divisions  in  order  to  annihilate  the 
power  of  the  emperors  in  Italy.  He  declared  Charles 
de  Valois,  brother  of  Philip  the  Fair,  king  of  France, 
his  vicar  in  Italy.  The  vicar  came  well  armed  and 
chased  away  the  whites  and  the  Ghibellines  and 
made  himself  detested  by  blacks  and  Guelphs.  Dante 
was  a  white  and  a  Ghibelline ;   he  was  driven  away 


56  Philosophical 

among  the  first  and  his  house  razed  to  the  ground. 
We  may  judge  if  he  could  be  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life,  favorable  towards  the  French  interest  and 
to  the  popes.  It  is  said,  however,  that  he  took  a 
journey  to  Paris,  and,  to  relieve  his  chagrin  turned 
theologian  and  disputed  vigorously  in  the  schools. 
It  is  added  that  the  emperor  Henry  VIII.  did  noth- 
ing for  him,  Ghibelline  as  he  was,  and  that  he  re- 
paired to  Frederick  of  Aragon,  king  of  Sicily,  and 
returned  as  poor  as  he  went.  He  subsequently  died 
in  poverty  at  Ravenna  at  the  age  of  fifty-six.  It  was 
during  these  various  peregrinations  that  he  com- 
posed his  divine  comedy  of  "Hell,  Purgatory,  and 
Paradise." 

[Voltaire  here  enters  into  a  description  of  the 
"Inferno,"  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  insert,  after 
the  various  translations  into  English.  The  conclu- 
sion, however,  exhibiting  our  author's  usual  vivacity, 
is  retained.] 

Is  all  this  in  the  comic  style  ?  No.  In  the  heroic 
manner  ?  No.  What  then  is  the  taste  of  this  poem  ? 
An  exceedingly  wild  one,  but  it  contains  verses  so 
happy  and  piquant  that  it  has  not  lain  dormant  for 
four  centuries  and  never  will  be  laid  aside.  A  poem, 
moreover,  which  puts  popes  into  hell  excites  atten- 
tion, and  the  sagacity  of  commentators  is  exhausted 
in  correctly  ascertaining  who  it  is  that  Dante  has 
damned,  it  being,  of  course,  of  the  first  consequence 
not  to  be  deceived  in  a  matter  so  important. 

A  chair  and  a  lecture  have  been  founded  with  a 


Dictionary.  57 

view  to  the  exposition  of  this  classic  author.  You 
ask  me  why  the  Inquisition  acquiesces.  I  reply  that 
in  Italy  the  Inquisition  understands  raillery  and 
knows  that  raillery  in  verse  never  does  any  harm. 

DAVID. 

We  are  called  upon  to  reverence  David  as  a 
prophet,  as  a  king,  as  the  ancestor  of  the  holy  spouse 
of  Mary,  as  a  man  who  merited  the  mercy  of  God 
from  his  penitence. 

I  will  boldly  assert  that  the  article  on  '"David," 
which  raised  up  so  many  enemies  to  Bayle,  the  first 
author  of  a  dictionary  of  facts  and  of  reasonings,  de- 
serves not  the  strange  noise  which  was  made  about 
it.  It  was  not  David  that  people  were  anxious  to  de- 
fend, but  Bayle  whom  they  were  solicitous  to  de- 
stroy. Certain  preachers  of  Holland,  his  mortal 
enemies,  were  so  far  blinded  by  their  enmity  as  to 
blame  him  for  having  praised  popes  whom  he 
thought  meritorious,  and  for  having  refuted  the  un- 
just calumny  with  which  they  had  been  assailed. 

This  absurd  and  shameful  piece  of  injustice  was 
signed  by  a  dozen  theologians  on  Dec.  20,  1698,  in 
the  same  consistory  in  which  they  pretended  to  take 
up  the  defence  of  King  David.  A  great  proof  that 
the  condemnation  of  Bayle  arose  from  personal  feel- 
ing is  supplied  by  the  fact  of  that  which  happened 
in  T761,  to  Mr.  Peter  Anet.  in  London.  The  doctors 
Chandler  and  Palmer,  having  delivered  funeral  ser- 


58  Philosophical 

mens  on  the  death  of  King  George  II.,  in  which  they 
compared  him  to  King  David,  Mr.  Anet,  who  did 
not  regard  this  comparison  as  honorable  to  the  de- 
ceased monarch,  pubHshed  his  famous  dissertation 
entitled,  "The  History  of  the  Man  after  God's  Own 
Heart."  In  that  work  he  makes  it  clear  that  George 
II.,  a  king  much  more  powerful  than  David,  did  not 
fall  into  the  errors  of  the  Jewish  sovereign,  and 
consequently  could  not  display  the  penitence  which 
was  the  origin  of  the  comparison. 

He  follows,  step  by  step,  the  Books  of  Kings,  ex- 
amines the  conduct  of  David  with  more  severity  than 
Bayle,  and  on  it  founds  an  opinion  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  does  not  praise  actions  of  the  nature  of  those 
attributed  to  David.  The  English  author,  in  fact, 
judges  the  king  of  Judah  upon  the  notions  of  jus- 
tice and  injustice  which  prevail  at  the  present  time. 

He  cannot  approve  of  the  assembly  of  a  band  of 
robbers  by  David  to  the  amount  of  four  hundred ; 
of  his  being  armed  with  the  sword  of  Goliath,  by  the 
liigh  priest  Abimelech,  from  whom  he  received  hal- 
lowed bread. 

He  could  not  think  well  of  the  expedition  of 
David  against  the  farmer,  Nabal,  in  order  to  destroy 
his  abode  with  fire  and  sword,  because  Nabal  re- 
fused contributions  to  his  troop  of  robbers ;  or  of  the 
death  of  Nabal  a  few  days  afterwards,  whose  widow 
David  immediately  espoused. 

He  condemned  his  conduct  to  King  Achish,  the 
possessor  of  a  few  villages  in  the  district  of  Gath. 


Dictionary.  59 

David,  at  the  head  of  five  or  six  hundred  banditti, 
made  inroads  upon  the  aUies  of  his  benefactor 
Achish.  He  pillaged  the  whole  of  them,  massacred 
all  the  inhabitants,  men,  women,  and  children  at  the 
breast.  And  why  the  children  at  the  breast?  For 
fear,  says  the  text,  these  children  should  carry  the 
news  to  King  Achish,  who  was  deceived  into  a  belief 
that  these  expeditions  were  undertaken  against  the 
Israelites,  by  an  absolute  lie  on  the  part  of  David. 

Again,  Saul  loses  a  battle  and  wishes  his  armor- 
bearer  to  slay  him,  who  refuses  ;  he  wounds  himself, 
but  not  eflfectually,  and  at  his  own  desire  a  young 
man  despatches  him,  who,  carrying  the  news  to 
David,  is  massacred  for  his  pains. 

Ishbosheth  succeeds  his  father,  Saul,  and  David 
makes  war  upon  him.  Finally  Ishbosheth  is  assassi- 
nated. 

David,  possessed  of  the  sole  dominion,  surprised 
the  little  town  or  village  of  Rabbah  and  put  all  the 
inhabitants  to  death  by  the  most  extraordinary  de- 
vices— sawing  them  asunder,  destroying  them  with 
harrows  and  axes  of  iron,  and  burning  them  in 
brick-kilns. 

After  these  expeditions  there  was  a  famine  in  the 
country  for  three  years.  In  fact,  from  this  mode  of 
making  war,  countries  must  necessarily  be  badly  cul- 
tivated. The  Lord  was  consulted  as  to  the  causes 
of  the  famine.  The  answer  was  easy.  In  a  country 
which  produces  corn  with  difficulty,  when  laborers 
are  baked  in  brick-kilns  and  sawed  into  pieces,  few 


6o  Philosophical 

people  remain  to  cultivate  the  earth.  The  Lord, 
however,  replied  that  it  was  because  Saul  had  for- 
merly slain  some  Gibeonites. 

What  is  David's  speedy  remedy?  He  assembles 
the  Gibeonites,  informs  them  that  Saul  had  com- 
mitted a  great  sin  in  making  war  upon  them,  and 
that  Saul  not  being  like  him,  a  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  it  would  be  proper  to  punish  him  in  his  poster- 
ity. He  therefore  makes  them  a  present  of  seven 
grandsons  of  Saul  to  be  hanged,  who  were  accord- 
ingly hanged  because  there  had  been  a  famine. 

Mr.  Anet  is  so  just  as  not  to  insist  upon  the  adul- 
tery with  Bathsheba  and  the  murder  of  her  husband, 
as  these  crimes  were  pardoned  in  consequence  of  the 
repentance  of  David.  They  were  horrible  and  abom- 
inable, but  being  remitted  by  the  Lord,  the  English 
author  also  absolves  from  them. 

No  one  complained  in  England  of  the  author,  and 
the  parliament  took  little  interest  in  the  history  of 
a  kinglet  of  a  petty  district  in  Syria. 

Let  justice  be  done  to  Father  Calmet;  he  has 
kept  within  bounds  in  his  dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
in  the  article  on  ''David."  "We  pretend  not,"  said 
he,  "to  approve  of  the  conduct  of  David,  but  it  is 
to  be  believed  that  this  excess  of  cruelty  was  com- 
mitted before  his  repentance  on  the  score  of  Bath- 
sheba." Possibly  he  repented  of  all  his  crimes  at  the 
same  time,  which  were  sufficiently  numerous. 

Let  us  here  ask  what  appears  to  us  to  be  an  im- 
portant question.     May  we  not  exhibit  a  portion  of 


Dictionary.  6 1 

contempt  in  the  article  on  "David,"  and  treat  of  his 
person  and  glory  with  the  respect  due  to  the  sacred 
books?  It  is  to  the  interest  of  mankind  that  crime 
should  in  no  case  be  sanctified.  What  signifies  what 
he  is  called,  who  massacres  the  wives  and  children 
of  his  allies;  who  hangs  the  grandchildren  of  his 
king;  who  saws  his  unhappy  captives  in  two,  tears 
them  to  pieces  with  harrows,  or  burns  them  in  brick- 
kilns? These  actions  we  judge,  and  not  the  letters 
which  compose  the  name  of  the  criminal.  His  name 
neither  augments  nor  diminishes  the  criminality. 

The  more  David  is  revered  after  his  reconciliation 
with  God,  the  more  are  his  previous  qualities  con- 
demnable. 

If  a  young  peasant,  in  searching  after  she-asses 
finds  a  kingdom  it  is  no  common  affair.  If  another 
peasant  cures  his  king  of  insanity  by  a  tune  on  the 
harp  that  is  still  more  extraordinary.  But  when  this 
petty  player  on  the  harp  becomes  king  because  he 
meets  a  village  priest  in  secret,  who  pours  a  bottle 
of  olive  oil  on  his  head,  the  affair  is  more  marvellous 
still. 

I  know  nothing  either  of  the  writers  of  these 
marvels,  or  of  the  time  in  which  they  were  written, 
but  I  am  certain  that  it  was  neither  Polybius  nor 
Tacitus. 

I  shall  not  speak  here  of  the  murder  of  Uriah, 
and  of  the  adultery  with  Bathsheba,  these  facts  be- 
ing sufficiently  well  known.  The  ways  of  God  are 
not  the  ways  of  men,  since  He  permitted  the  descent 


62  Philosophical 

of  Jesus  Christ  from  this  very  Bathsheba,  every- 
thing being  rendered  pure  by  so  holy  a  mystery. 

I  ask  not  now  how  Jurieu  had  the  audacity  to 
persecute  the  wise  Bayle  for  not  approving  all  the 
actions  of  the  good  King  David.  I  only  inquire  why 
a  man  like  Jurieu  is  suffered  to  molest  a  man  like 
Bayle. 

DECRETALS. 

These  are  letters  of  the  popes  which  regulate 
points  of  doctrine  and  discipline  and  which  have  the 
force  of  law  in  the  Latin  church. 

Besides  the  genuine  ones  collected  by  Denis  le 
Petit,  there  is  a  collection  of  false  ones,  the  author  of 
which,  as  well  as  the  date,  is  unknown.  It  was  an 
archbishop  of  Mentz  called  Riculphus  who  cir- 
culated it  in  France  about  the  end  of  the  eighth  cen- 
tury; he  had  also  brought  to  Worms  an  epistle  of 
Pope  Gregory,  which  had  never  before  been  heard 
of,  but  no  vestige  of  the  latter  is  at  present  remain- 
ing, while  the  false  decretals,  as  we  shall  see,  have 
met  with  the  greatest  success  for  eight  centuries. 

This  collection  bears  the  name  of  Isidore  Merca- 
tor,  and  comprehends  an  infinite  number  of  decrees 
falsely  ascribed  to  the  popes,  from  Clement  I.  down 
to  Siricius.  The  false  donation  of  Constantine  ;  the 
Council  of  Rome  under  Sylvester ;  the  letter  of 
Athanasius  to  Mark ;  that  of  Anastasius  to  the 
bishops  of  Germany  and  Burgundy ;  that  of  Sixtus 
III.  to  the  Orientals;  that  of  Leo.  I.  relating  to  the 


Dictionary.  6^ 

privileges  of  the  rural  bishops ;  that  of  John  I.  to 
the  archbishop  Zachariah ;  one  of  Boniface  II.  to 
Eulalia  of  Alexandria;  one  of  John  III.  to  the 
bishops  of  France  and  Burgundy ;  one  of  Gregory, 
containing  a  privilege  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Me- 
dard ;  one  from  the  same  to  Felix,  bishop  of  Mes- 
sina, and  many  others. 

The  object  of  the  author  was  to  extend  the  au- 
thority of  the  pope  and  the  bishops.  With  this  view, 
he  lays  it  dow^n  as  a  principle  that  they  can  be  defi- 
nitely judged  only  by  the  pope,  and  he  often  repeats 
this  maxim  that  not  only  every  bishop  but  every 
priest,  and,  generally,  every  oppressed  individual 
may,  in  any  stage  of  a  cause,  appeal  directly  to  the 
pope.  He  likewise  considers  it  as  an  incontestable 
principle  that  no  council,  not  even  a  provincial  one, 
may  be  held  without  the  permission  of  the  pope. 

These  decretals,  favoring  the  impunity  of  bishops, 
and  still  more  the  ambitious  pretensions  of  the 
popes,  were  eagerly  adopted  by  them  both.  In  86i, 
Rotade,  bishop  of  Soissons,  being  deprived  of  epis- 
copal communion  in  a  provincial  council  on  account 
of  disobedience,  appeals  to  the  pope.  Hincmar  of 
Rheims,  his  metropolitan,  notwithstanding  his  ap- 
peal, deposes  him  in  another  council  under  the  pre- 
text that  he  had  afterwards  renounced  it,  and  sub- 
mitted himself  to  the  judgment  of  the  bishops. 

Pope  Nicholas  I.  being  informed  of  this  affair, 
wrote  to  Hincmar,  and  blamed  his  proceedings. 
"You  ought,"  says  he,  "to  honor  the  memory  of  St. 


64  Philosophical 

Peter,  and  await  our  judgment,  even  although  Ro- 
tade  had  not  appealed."  And  in  another  letter  on 
the  same  matter,  he  threatens  Hincmar  with  excom- 
munication, if  he  does  not  restore  Rotade.  That 
pope  did  more.  Rotade  having  arrived  at  Rome,  he 
declared  him  acquitted  in  a  council  held  on  Christ- 
mas eve,  864;  and  dismissed  him  to  his  see  with 
letters.  That  which  he  addressed  to  all  the  bishops 
is  worthy  of  notice,  and  is  as  follows : 

"What  you  say  is  absurd,  that  Rotade,  after  hav- 
ing appealed  to  the  holy  see,  changed  his  language 
and  submitted  himself  anew  to  your  judgment. 
Even  although  he  had  done  so,  it  would  have  been 
your  duty  to  set  him  right,  and  teach  him  that  an 
appeal  never  lies  from  a  superior  judge  to  an  in- 
ferior one.  But  even  although  he  had  not  appealed 
to  the  holy  see,  you  ought  by  no  means  to  depose  a 
bishop  without  our  participation,  in  prejudice  of  so 
many  decretals  of  our  predecessors ;  for,  if  it  be  by 
their  judgment  that  the  writings  of  other  doctors  are 
approved  or  rejected,  how  much  more  should  that 
be  respected  which  they  have  themselves  written,  to 
decide  on  points  of  doctrine  and  discipline.  Some 
tell  you  that  these  decretals  are  not  in  the  book  of 
canons ;  yet  those  same  persons,  when  they  find 
them  favorable  to  their  designs,  use  both  without 
distinction,  and  reject  them  only  to  lessen  the  power 
of  the  holy  see.  If  the  decretals  of  the  ancient  popes 
are  to  be  rejected  because  they  are  not  contained  in 
the  book  of  canons,  the  writings  of  St.  Gregory, 


Dictionary.  6^ 

and  the  rest  of  the  fathers,  must,  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple, be  rejected  also,  and  even  the  Holy  Scriptures 
themselves." 

"You  say,"  the  pope  continues,  "that  judgments 
upon  bishops  are  not  among  the  higher  causes ;  we 
maintain  that  they  are  high  in  proportion  as  bishops 
hold  a  high  rank  in  the  church.  Will  you  assert  that 
it  is  only  metropolitan  affairs  which  constitute  the 
higher  causes?  But  metropolitans  are  not  of  a  dif- 
ferent order  from  bishops,  and  we  do  not  demand 
different  witnesses  or  judges  in  the  one  case,  from 
what  are  usual  in  the  other;  we  therefore  require 
that  causes  which  involve  either  should  be  reserved 
for  us.  And,  finally,  can  anyone  be  found  so  utterly 
unreasonable  as  to  say  that  all  other  churches  ought 
to  preserve  their  privileges,  and  that  the  Roman 
Church  alone  should  lose  hers?"  He  concludes  with 
ordering  them  to  receive  and  replace  Rotade. 

Pope  Adrian,  the  successor  of  Nicholas  I.,  seems 
to  have  been  no  less  zealous  in  a  similar  case  relating 
to  Hincmar  of  Laon.  That  prelate  had  rendered 
himself  hateful  both  to  the  clergy  and  people  of  his 
diocese,  by  various  acts  of  injustice  and  violence. 
Having  been  accused  before  the  Council  of  Verberie 
— at  which  Hincmar  of  Rheims,  his  uncle  and  met- 
ropolitan, presided — he  appealed  to  the  pope,  and 
demanded  permission  to  go  to  Rome.  This  was  re- 
fused him.  The  process  against  him  was  merely 
suspended,   and  the  affair  went   no  farther.      But 

upon  new  matters  of  complaint  brought  against  him 
Vol.  8—5 


66  Philosophical 

by  Charles  the  Bald  and  Hincmar  of  Rheims,  he  was 
cited  at  first  before  the  Council  of  Attigny,  where  he 
appeared,  and  soon  afterwards  fled ;  and  then  be- 
fore the  Council  of  Douzy,  where  he  renewed  his  ap- 
peal, and  was  deposed.  The  council  wrote  to  the 
pope  a  synodal  letter,  on  Sept.  6,  871,  to  request  of 
him  a  confirmation  of  the  acts  which  they  sent  him ; 
but  Adrian,  far  from  acquiescing  in  the  judgment 
of  the  council,  expressed  in  the  strongest  terms  his 
disapprobation  of  the  condemnation  of  Hincmar ; 
maintaining  that,  since  Hincmar  declared  before  the 
council  that  he  appealed  to  the  holy  see,  they  ought 
not  to  have  pronounced  any  sentence  of  condemna 
tion  upon  him.  Such  were  the  terms  used  by  that 
pope,  in  his  letter  to  the  bishops  of  the  council,  as 
also  in  that  which  he  wrote  to  the  king. 

The  following  is  the  vigorous  answer  sent  by 
Charles  to  Adrian :  "Your  letters  say,  'We  will  and 
ordain,  by  apostolical  authority,  that  Hincmar  of 
Laon  shall  come  to  Rome  and  present  himself  before 
us,  resting  upon  your  supremacy.' 

"We  wonder  where  the  writer  of  this  letter  dis- 
covered that  a  king,  whose  duty  it  is  to  chastise  the 
guilty  and  be  the  avenger  of  crimes,  should  send  to 
Rome  a  criminal  convicted  according  to  legal  forms, 
and  more  especially  one  who,  before  his  deposition, 
was  found  guilty,  in  three  councils,  of  enterprises 
against  the  public  peace ;  and  who,  after  his  depo- 
sition, persisted  in  his  disobedience. 

"We  are  compelled  further  to  tell  you,  that  we, 


Dictionary.  67 

kings  of  France,  born  of  a  royal  race,  have  never  yet 
passed  for  the  deputies  of  bishops,  but  for  sov- 
ereigns of  the  earth.  And,  as  St.  Leon  and  the 
Roman  council  have  said,  kings  and  emperors, 
whom  God  has  appointed  to  govern  the  world,  have 
permitted  bishops  to  regulate  their  affairs  according 
to  their  ordinances,  but  they  have  never  been  the 
stewards  of  bishops ;  and  if  you  search  the  records 
of  your  predecessors,  you  will  not  find  that  they 
have  ever  written  to  persons  in  our  exalted  situation 
as  you  have  done  in  the  present  instance." 

He  then  adduces  two  letters  of  St.  Gregory,  to 
show  with  what  modesty  he  wrote,  not  only  to  the 
kings  of  France,  but  to  the  exarchs  of  Italy. 
"Finally,"  he  concludes,  "I  beg  that  you  will  never 
more  send  to  me,  or  to  the  bishops  of  my  kingdom, 
similar  letters,  if  you  wish  that  we  should  give  to 
what  you  write  that  honor  and  respect  which  we 
would  willingly  grant  it."  The  bishops  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Douzy  answered  the  pope  nearly  in  the  same 
strain ;  and,  although  we  have  not  the  entire  letter, 
it  appears  that  their  object  in  it  was  to  prove  that 
Hincmar's  appeal  ought  not  to  be  decided  at  Rome, 
but  in  France,  by  judges  delegated  conformably  to 
the  canons  of  the  Council  of  Sardis, 

These  examples  are  sufficient  to  show^  how  the 
popes  extended  their  jurisdiction  by  the  instru- 
mentality of  these  false  decretals ;  and  although 
Hincmar  of  Rheims  objected  to  Adrian,  that,  not 
being  included  in  the  book  of  canons,  they  could  not 


68  Philosophical 

subvert  the  discipline  established  by  the  canons — 
which  occasioned  his  being  accused,  before  Pope 
John  VIII.,  of  not  admitting  the  decretals  of  the 
popes — he  constantly  cited  these  decretals  as  author- 
ities, in  his  letters  and  other  writings,  and  his  ex- 
ample was  followed  by  many  bishops.  At  first, 
those  only  were  admitted  which  were  not  contrary 
to  the  more  recent  canons,  and  afterwards  there  was 
less  and  less  scruple. 

The  councils  themselves  made  use  of  them. 
Thus,  in  that  of  Rheims,  held  in  992,  the  bishops 
availed  themselves  of  the  decretals  of  Anacletus,  of 
Julius,  of  Damasus,  and  other  popes,  in  the  cause  of 
Arnoul.  Succeeding  councils  imitated  that  of 
Rheims.  The  popes  Gregory  VII.,  Urban  II.,  Pas- 
cal II.,  Urban  III.,  and  Alexander  III.  supported 
the  maxims  they  found  in  them,  persuaded  that  they 
constituted  the  discipline  of  the  flourishing  age  of 
the  church.  Finally,  the  compilers  of  the  canons — 
Bouchard  of  Worms,  Yves  of  Chartres,  and  Gra- 
tian — introduced  them  into  their  collection.  After 
they  became  publicly  taught  in  the  schools,  and  com- 
mented upon,  all  the  polemical  and  scholastic  di- 
vines, and  all  the  expositors  of  the  canon  law, 
eagerly  laid  hold  of  these  false  decretals  to  confirm 
the  Catholic  dogmas,  or  to  establish  points  of  dis- 
cipline, and  scattered  them  profusely  through  their 
works. 

It  was  not  till  the  sixteenth  century  that  the  first 
suspicions  of  their  authenticity  were  excited.    Eras- 


Dictionary.  69 

mus,   and  many  others  with  him,   called  them   in 
question  upon  the  following  grounds: 

1.  The  decretals  contained  in  the  collection  of 
Isidore  are  not  in  that  of  Denis  le  Petit,  who  cited 
none  of  the  decretals  of  the  popes  before  the  time 
of  Siricius.  Yet  he  informs  us  that  he  took  extreme 
care  in  collecting  them.  They  could  not,  therefore, 
have  escaped  him,  if  they  had  existed  in  the  ar- 
chives of  the  see  of  Rome,  where  he  resided.  If  they 
were  unknown  to  the  holy  see,  to  which  they  were 
favorable,  they  were  so  to  the  whole  church.  The 
fathers  and  councils  of  the  first  eight  centuries  have 
made  no  mention  of  them.  But  how  can  this  univer- 
sal silence  be  reconciled  with  their  authenticity? 

2.  These  decretals  do  not  all  correspond  with 
the  state  of  things  existing  at  the  time  in  which  they 
are  supposed  to  have  been  written.  Not  a  word  is 
said  of  the  heresies  of  the  three  first  centuries,  nor 
of  other  ecclesiastical  aflfairs  with  which  the  genuine 
works  of  the  same  period  are  filled.  This  proves 
that  they  were  fabricated  afterwards. 

3.  Their  dates  are  almost  always  false.  Their 
author  generally  follows  the  chronology  of  the  pon- 
tifical book,  which,  by  Baronius's  own  confession,  is 
very  incorrect.  This  is  a  presumptive  evidence  that 
the  collection  was  not  composed  till  after  the  pon- 
tifical book. 

4.  These  decretals,  in  all  the  citations  of  Scrip- 
ture passages  which  they  contain,  use  the  version 
known  by  the  name  of  "Vulgate,"  made,  or  at  least 


yo  Philosophical 

revised,  by  St.  Jerome.  They  are,  therefore,  of  later 
date  than  St.  Jerome. 

Finally,  they  are  all  written  in  the  same  style, 
which  is  very  barbarous ;  and,  in  that  respect,  corre- 
sponding to  the  ignorance  of  the  eighth  century : 
but  it  is  not  by  any  means  probable  that  all  the  dif- 
ferent popes,  whose  names  they  bear,  afifected  that 
uniformity  of  style.  It  may  be  concluded  with  con- 
fidence, that  all  the  decretals  are  from  the  same 
hand. 

Besides  these  general  reasons,  each  of  the  docu- 
ments which  form  Isidore's  collection  carries  with 
it  marks  of  forgery  peculiar  to  itself,  and  none  of 
which  have  escaped  the  keen  criticism  of  David 
Blondel,  to  whom  we  are  principally  indebted  for 
the  light  thrown  at  the  present  day  on  this  compila- 
tion, now  no  longer  known  but  as  "The  False  De- 
cretals" ;  but  the  usages  introduced  in  consequence 
of  it  exist  not  the  less  through  a  considerable  portion 
of  Europe. 

DELUGE  (UNIVERSAL), 

We  begin  with  observing  that  we  are  believers 
in  the  universal  deluge,  because  it  is  recorded  in  the 
holy  Hebrew  Scriptures  transmitted  to  Christians. 
We  consider  it  as  a  miracle : 

1.  Because  all  the  facts  by  which  God  conde- 
scends to  interfere  in  the  sacred  books  are  so  many 
miracles. 

2.  Because  the  sea  could  not  rise  fifteen  cubits, 


Dictionary.  7 1 

or  one-and-twenty  standard  feet  and  a  half,  above 
the  highest  mountains,  without  leaving  its  bed  dry, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  violating  all  the  laws  of 
gravity  and  the  equilibrium  of  fluids,  which  would 
evidently  require  a  miracle. 

3.  Because,  even  although  it  might  rise  to  the 
height  mentioned,  the  ark  could  not  have  contained, 
according  to  known  physical  laws,  all  the  living 
things  of  the  earth,  together  with  their  food,  for  so 
long  a  time ;  considering  that  lions,  tigers,  panthers, 
leopards,  ounces,  rhinoceroses,  bears,  wolves,  hye- 
nas, eagles,  hawks,  kites,  vultures,  falcons,  and  all 
carnivorous  animals,  which  feed  on  flesh  alone, 
would  have  died  of  hunger,  even  after  having  de- 
voured all  the  other  species. 

There  was  printed  some  time  ago,  in  an  appendix 
to  Pascal's  "Thoughts,"  a  dissertation  of  a  mer- 
chant of  Rouen,  called  Le  Peletier,  in  which  he  pro- 
poses a  plan  for  building  a  vessel  in  which  all  kinds 
of  animals  might  be  included  and  maintained  for  the 
space  of  a  year.  It  is  clear  that  this  merchant  never 
superintended  even  a  poultry-yard.  We  cannot  but 
look  upon  M.  Le  Peletier,  the  architect  of  the  ar]<, 
as  a  visionary,  who  knew  nothing  about  menageries  ; 
and  upon  the  deluge  as  an  adorable  miracle,  fearful 
and  incomprehensible  to  the  feeble  reason  of  M.  Le 
Peletier,  as  well  as  to  our  own, 

4.  Because  the  physical  impossibility  of  a  uni- 
versal deluge,  by  natural  means,  can  be  strictly  dem- 
onstrated.    The  demonstration  is  as  follows .-    All 


72  Philosophical 

the  seas  cover  half  the  globe.  A  common  measure 
of  their  depths  near  the  shores,  and  in  the  open 
ocean,  is  assumed  to  be  five  hundred  feet. 

In  order  that  they  might  cover  both  hemispheres 
to  the  depth  of  five  hundred  feet,  not  only  would  an 
ocean  of  that  depth  be  necessary  over  all  the  land, 
but  a  new  sea  would,  in  addition,  be  required  to 
envelop  the  ocean  at  present  existing,  without  which 
the  laws  of  hydrostatics  would  occasion  the  disper- 
sion of  that  other  new  mass  of  water  five  hundred 
feet  deep,  which  should  remain  covering  the  land. 
Thus,  then,  two  new  oceans  are  requisite  to  cover 
the  terraqueous  globe  merely  to  the  depth  of  five 
hundred  feet. 

Supposing  the  mountains  to  be  only  twenty  thou- 
sand feet  high,  forty  oceans,  each  five  hundred  feet 
in  height,  would  be  required  to  accumulate  on  each 
other,  merely  in  order  to  equal  the  height  of  the 
mountains.  Every  successive  ocean  would  contain 
all  the  others,  and  the  last  of  them  all  would  have  a 
circumference  containing  forty  times  that  of  the 
first. 

In  order  to  form  this  mass  of  water,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  create  it  out  of  nothing.  In  order  to 
withdraw  it,  it  would  be  necessary  to  annihilate  it. 
The  event  of  the  deluge,  then,  is  a  double  miracle,, 
and  the  greatest  that  has  ever  manifested  the  power 
of  the  eternal  Sovereign  of  all  worlds. 

We  are  exceedingly  surprised  that  some  learned 
men  have  attributed  to  this  deluge  some  small  shellr 


Dictionary.  73 

found  in  many  parts  of  our  continent.  We  are  still 
more  surprised  at  what  we  find  under  the  article  on 
"Deluge,"  in  the  grand  "Encyclopaedia."  An  author 
is  quoted  in  it,  who  says  things  so  very  profound 
that  they  may  be  considered  as  chimerical.  This  is 
the  first  characteristic  of  Pluche.  He  proves  the 
possibility  of  the  deluge  by  the  history  of  the  giants 
who  made  war  against  the  gods ! 

Briareus,  according  to  him,  is  clearly  the  deluge, 
for  it  signifies  "the  loss  of  serenity" :  and  in  what 
language  does  it  signify  this  loss  ? — in  Hebrew.  But 
Briareus  is  a  Greek  word,  which  means  "robust" :  it 
is  not  a  Hebrew  word.  Even  if,  by  chance,  it  had 
been  so,  we  should  beware  of  imitating  Bochart, 
who  derives  so  many  Greek,  Latin,  and  even  French 
words  from  the  Hebrew  idiom.  The  Greeks  cer- 
tainly knew  no  more  of  the  Jewish  idiom  than  of  the 
language  of  the  Chinese. 

The  giant  Othus  is  also  in  Hebrew,  according  to 
Pluche,  "the  derangement  of  the  seasons."  But  it  is 
also  a  Greek  word,  which  does  not  signify  anything, 
at  least,  that  I  know ;  and  even  if  it  did,  what,  let 
me  ask,  could  it  have  to  do  with  the  Hebrew  ? 

Porphyrion  is  "a  shaking  of  the  earth,"  in  He- 
brew ;  but  in  Greek,  it  is  porphyry.  This  has  noth- 
ing to  do  wnth  the  deluge. 

Mimos  is  "a  great  rain" ;  for  once,  he  does  men- 
tion a  name  which  may  bear  upon  the  deluge.  But 
in  Greek  mimos  means  mimic,  comedian.  There  are 
no  means  of  tracing  the  deluge  of  such  an  origin. 


74  Philosophical 

Enceladus  is  another  proof  of  the  deluge  in  He- 
brew ;  for,  according  to  Pluche,  it  is  the  fountain  of 
time;  but,  unluckily,  in  Greek  it  is  "noise." 

Ephialtes,  another  demonstration  of  the  deluge 
in  Hebrew ;  for  ephialtes,  which  signifies  leaper, 
oppressor,  incubus,  in  Greek  is,  according  to  Pluche, 
"a  vast  accumulation  of  clouds." 

But  the  Greeks,  having  taken  everything  from 
the  Hebrews,  with  whom  they  were  unacquainted, 
clearly  gave  to  their  giants  all  those  names  which 
Pluche  extracts  from  the  Hebrew  as  well  as  he  can, 
and  all  as  a  memorial  of  the  deluge. 

Such  is  the  reasoning  of  Pluche.  It  is  he  who 
cites  the  author  of  the  article  on  "Deluge"  without 
refuting  him.  Does  he  speak  seriously,  or  does  he 
jest?  I  do  not  know.  All  I  know  is,  that  there  is 
scarcely  a  single  system  to  be  found  at  which  one 
can  forbear  jesting. 

I  have  some  apprehension  that  the  article  in  the 
grand  "Encyclopaedia,"  attributed  to  M.  Boulanger, 
is  not  serious.  In  that  case,  we  ask  whether  it  is 
philosophical.  Philosophy  is  so  often  deceived,  that 
we  shall  not  venture  to  decide  against  M.  Boulanger. 

Still  less  shall  we  venture  to  ask  what  was  that 
abyss  which  was  broken  up,  or  what  were  the  cat- 
aracts of  heaven  which  were  opened.  Isaac  Vossius 
denies  the  universality  of  the  deluge :  "Hoc  est  pie 
nugari."  Calmet  maintains  it;  informing  us,  that 
bodies  have  no  weight  in  air,  but  in  consequence  of 
their  being   compressed   by    air.     Calmet   was   not 


Dictionary.  75 

much  of  a  natural  philosopher,  and  the  weight  of  the 
air  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  deluge.  Let  us  con- 
tent ourselves  with  reading  and  respecting  every- 
thing in  the  Bihle,  without  comprehending  a  single 
word  of  it. 

I  do  not  comprehend  how  God  created  a  race  of 
men  in  order  to  drown  them,  and  then  substituted  in 
their  room  a  race  still  viler  than  the  first. 

How  seven  pairs  of  all  kinds  of  clean  animals 
should  come  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe, 
together  with  two  pairs  of  unclean  ones,  without 
the  wolves  devouring  the  sheep  on  the  way,  or  the 
kites  the  pigeons,  etc. 

How  eight  persons  could  keep  in  order,  feed,  and 
water,  such  an  immense  number  of  inmates,  shut 
up  in  an  ark  for  nearly  two  years ;  for,  after  the 
cessation  of  the  deluge,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
have  food  for  all  these  passengers  for  another  year, 
in  consequence  of  the  herbage  being  so  scanty. 

I  am  not  like  M.  Le  Peletier.  I  admire  every- 
thing, and  explain  nothing. 

DEMOCRACY. 

Le pire  des  e'tats,  cest  l' e tat popul aire. 
That  sway  is  worst,  in  which  the  people  rule. 

Such  is  the  opinion  which  Cinna  gave  Augustus. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  Maximus  maintains,  that 

Le  pire  des  e'tats,  c'est  Vctat  inonarchique. 
That  sway  is  worst,  in  which  a  monarch  rules. 

Bayle.   in  his   "Philosophical   Dictionary,"   after 


76  Philosophical 

having  repeatedly  advocated  both  sides  of  the  ques- 
tion, gives,  under  the  article  on  "Pericles,"  a  most 
disgusting  picture  of  democracy,  and  more  particu- 
larly that  of  Athens. 

A  republican,  who  is  a  stanch  partisan  of  democ- 
racy, and  one  of  our  "proposers  of  questions,"  sends 
us  his  refutation  of  Bayle  and  his  apology  for 
Athens.  We  will  adduce  his  reasons.  It  is  the  priv- 
ilege of  every  writer  to  judge  the  living  and  the 
dead ;  he  who  thus  sits  in  judgment  will  be  himself 
judged  by  others,  who,  in  their  turn,  will  be  judged 
also;  and  thus,  from  age  to  age,  all  sentences  are, 
according  to  circumstances,  reversed  or  reformed. 

Bayle,  then,  after  some  common-place  observa- 
tions, uses  these  words:  "A  man  would  look  in 
vain  into  the  history  of  Macedon  for  as  much 
tyranny  as  he  finds  in  the  history  of  Athens." 

Perhaps  Bayle  was  discontented  with  Holland 
when  he  thus  wrote ;  and  probably  my  republican 
friend,  who  refutes  him,  is  contented  with  his  little 
democratic  city  "for  the  present." 

It  is  difficult  to  weigh,  in  an  exquisitely  nice  bal- 
ance, the  iniquities  of  the  republic  of  Athens  and  of 
the  court  of  Macedon.  We  still  upbraid  the  Athe- 
nians with  the  banishment  of  Cimon,  Aristides, 
Themistocles,  and  Alcibiades,  and  the  sentences  of 
death  upon  Phocion  and  Socrates ;  sentences  simi- 
lar in  absurdity  and  cruelty  to  those  of  some  of  our 
own  tribunals. 

In  short,  what  we  can  never  pardon  in  the  Athe- 


Dictionary.  77 

nians  is  the  execution  of  their  six  victorious  gen- 
erals, condemned  because  they  had  not  time  to  bury 
their  dead  after  the  victory,  and  because  they  were 
prevented  from  doing  so  by  a  tempest.  The  sen- 
tence is  at  once  so  ridiculous  and  barbarous,  it  bears 
such  a  stamp  of  superstition  and  ingratitude,  that 
those  of  the  Inquisition,  those  delivered  against  Ur- 
bain  Grandier,  against  the  wife  of  Marshal  d'Ancre, 
against  Montrin,  and  against  innumerable  sorcerers 
and  witches,  etc.,  are  not,  in  fact,  fooleries  more 
atrocious. 

It  is  in  vain  to  say,  in  excuse  of  the  Athenians, 
that  they  believed,  like  Homer  before  them,  that 
the  souls  of  the  dead  were  always  wandering,  unless 
they  had  received  the  honors  of  sepulture  or  burn- 
ing.   A  folly  is  no  excuse  for  a  barbarity. 

A  dreadful  evil,  indeed,  for  the  souls  of  a  few 
Greeks  to  ramble  for  a  week  or  two  on  the  shores  of 
the  ocean !  The  evil  is,  in  consigning  living  men  to 
the  executioner ;  living  men  who  have  won  a  battle 
for  you;  living  men.  to  whom  you  ought  to  be  de- 
voutly grateful. 

Thus,  then,  are  the  Athenians  convicted  of  hav- 
ing been  at  once  the  most  silly  and  the  most  barbar- 
ous judges  in  the  world.  But  we  must  now  place 
in  the  balance  the  crimes  of  the  court  of  Macedon ; 
we  shall  see  that  that  court  far  exceeds  Athens  in 
point  of  tyranny  and  atrocity. 

There  is  ordinarily  no  comparison  to  be  made  be- 
tween the  crimes  of  the  great,  who  are  always  am- 


78  Philosophical 

bitious,  and  those  of  the  people,  who  never  desire, 
and  who  never  can  desire,  anything  but  Hberty  and 
equality.  These  two  sentiments,  "hberty  and  equal- 
ity," do  not  necessarily  lead  to  calumny,  rapine, 
assassination,  poisoning,  and  devastation  of  the 
lands  of  neighbors ;  but,  the  towering  ambition  and 
thirst  for  power  of  the  great  precipitate  them  head- 
long into  every  species  of  crime  in  all  periods  and 
all  places. 

In  this  same  ^lacedon,  the  virtue  of  which  Bayle 
opposes  to  that  of  Athens,  we  see  nothing  but  a 
tissue  of  tremendous  crimes  for  a  series  of  two  hun- 
dred years. 

It  is  Ptolemy,  the  uncle  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
who  assassinates  his  brother  Alexander  to  usurp  the 
kingdom.  It  is  Philip,  his  brother,  who  spends  his 
life  in  guilt  and  perjury,  and  ends  it  by  a  stab  from 
Pausanias. 

Olympias  orders  Queen  Cleopatra  and  her  son  to 
be  thrown  into  a  furnace  of  molten  brass.  She 
assassinates  Aridaeus.  Antigonus  assassinates  Eu- 
menes.  Antigonus  Gonatas,  his  son,  poisons  the 
governor  of  the  citadel  of  Corinth,  marries  his 
widow,  expels  her,  and  takes  possession  of  the  cita- 
del. Philip,  his  grandson,  poisons  Demetrius,  and 
defiles  the  whole  of  Macedon  with  murders.  Per- 
seus kills  his  wife  with  his  own  hand,  and  poisons 
his  brother.  These  perfidies  and  cruelties  are  au- 
thenticated in  history. 

Thus,  then,  for  two  centuries,   the  madness  of 


Dictionary.  79 

despotism  converts  Macedon  into  a  theatre  for  every 
crime ;  and  in  the  same  space  of  time  you  see  the 
popular  g^overnment  of  Athens  stained  only  by  five 
or  six  acts  of  judicial  iniquity,  five  or  six  certainly 
atrocious  judgments,  of  which  the  people  in  every 
instance  repented,  and  for  which  they  made,  as  far 
as  they  could,  honorable  expiation  (amende  hon- 
orable). They  asked  pardon  of  Socrates  after  his 
death,  and  erected  to  his  memory  the  small  temple 
called  Socratcion.  They  asked  pardon  of  Phocion, 
and  raised  a  statue  to  his  honor.  They  asked  par- 
don of  the  six  generals,  so  ridiculously  condemned 
and  so  basely  executed.  They  confined  in  chains 
the  principal  accuser,  who,  with  difficulty,  escaped 
from  public  vengeance.  The  Athenian  people, 
therefore,  appear  to  have  had  good  natural  disposi- 
tions, connected,  as  they  were,  with  great  versatility 
and  frivolity.  In  what  despotic  state  has  the  in- 
justice of  precipitate  decrees  ever  been  thus  ingenu- 
ously acknowledged  and  deplored? 

Bayle,  then,  is  for  this  once  in  the  wrong.  My 
republican  has  reason  on  his  side.  Popular  govern- 
ment, therefore,  is  in  itself  iniquitous,  and  less 
abominable  than  monarchical  despotism. 

The  great  vice  of  democracy  is  certainly  not 
tyranny  and  cruelty.  There  have  been  republicans 
in  mountainous  regions  wild  and  ferocious  ;  but  they 
were  made  so,  not  by  the  spirit  of  republicanism,  but 
bv  nature.  The  North  American  savages  were  en- 
tirely republican ;   but  they  were  republics  of  bears. 


8o  Philosophical 

The  radical  vice  of  a  civilized  republic  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  Turkish  fable  of  the  dragon  with 
many  heads,  and  the  dragon  with  many  tails.  The 
multitude  of  heads  become  injurious,  and  the  multi- 
tude of  tails  obey  one  single  head,  which  wants  to 
devour  all. 

Democracy  seems  to  suit  only  a  very  small  coun- 
try ;  and  even  that  fortunately  situated.  Small  as  it 
may  be,  it  will  commit  many  faults,  because  it  will  be 
composed  of  men.  Discord  will  prevail  in  it,  as  in 
a  convent  of  monks ;  but  there  will  be  no  St.  Bar- 
tholomews there,  no  Irish  massacre,  no  Sicilian  ves- 
pers, no  Inquisition,  no  condemnation  to  the  galleys 
for  having  taken  water  from  the  ocean  without  pay- 
ing for  it;  at  least,  unless  it  be  a  republic  of  devils, 
established  in  some  corner  of  hell. 

After  having  taken  the  side  of  my  Swiss  friend 
against  the  dexterous  fencing-master,  Bayle,  I  will 
add :  That  the  Athenians  were  warriors  like  the 
Swiss,  and  as  polite  as  the  Parisians  were  under 
Louis  XIV. ;  that  they  excelled  in  every  art  requir- 
ing genius  or  execution,  like  the  Florentine  in  time 
of  the  Medici ;  that  they  were  the  masters  of  the 
Romans  in  the  sciences  and  in  eloquence,  even  in 
the  days  of  Cicero ;  that  this  same  people,  insignifi- 
cant in  number,  who  scarcely  possessed  anything  of 
territory,  and  who,  at  the  present  day,  consist  only 
of  a  band  of  ignorant  slaves,  a  hundred  times  less 
numerous  than  the  Jews,  and  deprived  of  all  but 
their  name,  yet  bear  away  the  palm  from  Roman 


Dictionary.  8 1 

power,  b}^  their  ancient  reputation,  which  triumphs 
at  once  over  time  and  degradation. 

Europe  has  seen  a  repubhc,  ten  times  smaller 
than  Athens,  attract  its  attention  for  the  space  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  its  name  placed  by 
the  side  of  that  of  Rome,  even  while  she  still  com- 
manded kings ;  while  she  condemned  one  Henry,  a 
sovereign  of  France,  and  absolved  and  scourged  an- 
other Henry,  the  first  man  of  his  age ;  even  while 
Venice  retained  her  ancient  splendor,  and  the  re- 
public of  the  seven  United  Provinces  was  astonish- 
ing Europe  and  the  Indies,  by  its  successful  estab- 
lishment and  extensive  commerce. 

This  almost  imperceptible  ant-hill  could  not  be 
crushed  by  the  royal  demon  of  the  South,  and  the 
monarch  of  two  worlds,  nor  by  the  intrigues  of  the 
Vatican,  which  put  in  motion  one-half  of  Europe. 
It  resisted  by  words  and  by  arms ;  and  with  the  help 
of  a  Picard  who  wrote,  and  a  small  number  of  Swiss 
who  fought  for  it,  it  became  at  length  established 
and  triumphant,  and  was  enabled  to  say,  "Rome  and 
I."  She  kept  all  minds  divided  between  the  rich 
pontiffs  who  succeeded  to  the  Scipios — Romanos 
reriim  doininos — and  the  poor  inhabitants  of  a  cor- 
ner of  the  world  long  unknown  in  a  country  of  pov- 
erty and  goitres. 

The    main    point    w^as,    to    decide    how    Europe 

should   think   on   the   subject   of  certain   questions 

which  no  one  understood.    It  was  the  conflict  of  the 

human  mind.    The  Calvins,  the  Bezas,  and  Turetins, 
Vol.  8—6 


82  Philosophical 

were  the  Demostheneses,  Platos,  and  Aristotles,  of 
the  day. 

The  absurdity  of  the  greater  part  of  the  contro- 
versial questions  which  bound  down  the  attention  of 
Europe,  having  at  length  been  acknowledged,  this 
small  republic  turned  our  consideration  to  w^hat  ap- 
pears of  solid  consequence — the  acquisition  of 
wealth.  The  system  of  law,  more  chimerical  and 
less  baleful  than  that  of  the  supralapsarians  and  the 
sublapsarians,  occupied  with  arithmetical  calcula- 
tions those  who  could  no  longer  gain  celebrity  as 
partisans  of  the  doctrine  of  crucified  divinity.  They 
became  rich,  but  were  no  longer  famous. 

It  is  thought  at  present  there  is  no  republic,  ex- 
cept in  Europe.  I  am  mistaken  if  I  have  not  some- 
where made  the  remark  myself ;  it  must,  however, 
have  been  a  great  inadvertence.  The  Spaniards 
found  in  America  the  republic  of  Tlascala  perfectly 
well  established.  Every  part  of  that  continent  which 
has  not  been  subjugated  is  still  republican.  In  the 
whole  of  that  vast  territory,  when  it  was  first  dis- 
covered, there  existed  no  more  than  two  kingdoms ; 
and  this  may  well  be  considered  as  a  proof  that  re- 
publican government  is  the  most  natural.  Men  must 
have  obtained  considerable  refinement,  and  have 
tried  many  experiments,  before  they  submit  to  the 
government  of  a  single  individual. 

In  Africa,  the  Hottentots,  the  Kaffirs,  and  many 
communities  of  negroes,  are  democracies.  It  is  pre- 
tended that  the  countries  in  which  the  greater  part 


Dictionary.  83 

of  the  negroes  arc  sold  are  governed  by  kings. 
Tripoli,  Tunis,  and  Algiers  are  republics  of  soldiers 
and  pirates.  There  are  similar  ones  in  India.  The 
Mahrattas,  and  many  other  Indian  hordes,  have  no 
kings :  they  elect  chiefs  when  they  go  on  their  expe- 
ditions of  plunder. 

Such  are  also  many  of  the  hordes  of  Tartars. 
Even  the  Turkish  Empire  has  long  been  a  republic 
of  janissaries,  who  have  frequently  strangled  their 
sultan,  when  their  sultan  did  not  decimate  them. 
We  are  every  day  asked,  whether  a  republican  or  a 
kingly  government  is  to  be  preferred  ?  The  dispute 
always  ends  in  agreeing  that  the  government  of  men 
is  exceedingly  difficult.  The  Jews  had  God  himself 
for  their  master ;  yet  observe  the  events  of  their  his- 
tory. They  have  almost  always  been  trampled  upon 
and  enslaved ;  and,  nationally,  what  a  wretched  fig- 
ure do  they  make  at  present! 

DEMONIACS. 

Hypochondriacal  and  epileptic  persons,  and 
women  laboring  under  hysterical  affections,  have 
always  been  considered  the  victims  of  evil  spirits, 
malignant  demons  and  divine  vengeance.  We  have 
seen  that  this  disease  was  called  the  sacred  disease ; 
and  that  while  the  physicians  were  ignorant,  the 
priests  of  antiquity  obtained  everywhere  the  care 
and  management  of  such  diseases. 

When  the  symptoms  were  very  complicated,  the 
patient  was  supposed  to  be  possessed  with  many  de- 


84  Philosophical 

mens — a  demon  of  madness,  one  of  luxury,  one  of 
avarice,  one  of  obstinacy,  one  of  short-sightedness, 
one  of  deafness;  and  the  exorciser  could  not  easily 
miss  finding  a  demon  of  foolery  created,  with  an- 
other of  knavery. 

The  Jews  expelled  devils  from  the  bodies  of  the 
possessed,  by  the  application  of  the  root  harath,  and 
a  certain  formula  of  words ;  our  Saviour  expelled 
them  by  a  divine  virtue ;  he  conmiunicated  that  vir- 
tue to  his  apostles,  but  it  is  now  greatly  impaired. 

A  short  time  since,  an  attempt  was  made  to  renew 
the  history  of  St.  Paulin.  That  saint  saw  on  the 
roof  of  a  church  a  poor  demoniac,  who  walked  un- 
der, or  rather  upon,  this  roof  or  ceiling,  with  his 
head  below  and  his  feet  above,  nearly  in  the  manner 
of  a  fly.  St.  Paulin  clearly  perceived  that  the  man 
was  possessed,  and  sent  several  leagues  ofif  for  some 
relics  of  St.  Felix  of  Nola,  which  were  applied  to 
the  patient  as  blisters.  The  demon  who  supported 
the  man  against  the  roof  instantly  fled,  and  the  de- 
moniac fell  down  upon  the  pavement. 

We  may  have  doubts  about  this  history,  while  we 
preserve  the  most  profound  respect  for  genuine 
miracles ;  and  we  may  be  permitted  to  observe  that 
this  is  not  the  way  in  which  we  now  cure  demoniacs. 
We  bleed  them,  bathe  them,  and  gently  relax  them 
by  medicine ;  we  apply  emollients  to  them.  This  is 
M.  Pome's  treatment  of  them;  and  he  has  per- 
formed more  cures  than  the  priests  of  Isis  or  Diana, 
or  of  anyone  else  who  ever  wrought  by  miracles. 


Dictionary.  85 

As  to  demoniacs  who  say  they  are  possessed  merely 
to  gain  money,  instead  of  being  bathed,  they  are  at 
present  flogged. 

It  often  happened,  that  the  specific  gravity  of 
epileptics,  whose  fibres  and  muscles  withered  away, 
was  lighter  than  w^ater,  and  that  they  floated  w^hen 
put  into  it.  A  miracle !  was  instantly  exclaimed.  It 
was  pronounced  that  such  a  person  must  be  a  de- 
moniac or  sorcerer;  and  holy  water  or  the  execu- 
tioner was  immediately  sent  for.  It  was  an  unques- 
tionable proof  that  either  the  demon  had  become 
master  of  the  body  of  the  floating  person,  or  that  the 
latter  had  voluntarily  delivered  himself  over  to  the 
demon.  On  the  first  supposition  the  person  w^as  ex- 
orcised, on  the  second  he  was  burned.  Thus  have 
w^e  been  reasoning  and  acting  for  a  period  of  fifteen 
or  sixteen  hundred  years,  and  yet  w^e  have  the  ef- 
frontery to  laugh  at  the  Kaffirs. 

In  1603,  in  a  small  village  of  Franche-Comte ,  a 
woman  of  quality  made  her  granddaughter  read 
aloud  the  lives  of  the  saints  in  the  presence  of  her 
parents;  this  young  w'oman,  who  was,  in  some  re- 
spects, very  well  informed,  but  ignorant  of  orthog- 
raphy, substituted  the  word  histories  for  that  of  lives 
(vies).  Her  step-mother,  who  hated  her,  said  to 
her  in  a  tone  of  harshness,  "Why  don't  you  read  as 
it  is  there?"  The  girl  blushed  and  trembled,  but  did 
not  venture  to  say  anything;  she  wished  to  avoid 
disclosing  w'hich  of  her  companions  had  interpreted 
the  word  upon  a  false  orthography,  and  prevented 


86  Philosophical 

her  using  it.  A  monk,  who  was  the  family  con- 
fessor, pretended  that  the  devil  had  taught  her  the 
word.  The  girl  chose  to  be  silent  rather  than  vindi- 
cate herself ;  her  silence  w^as  considered  as  amount- 
ing to  confession;  the  Inquisition  convicted  her  of 
having  made  a  compact  with  the  devil :  she  was  con- 
demned to  be  burned,  because  she  had  a  large  for- 
tune from  her  mother,  and  the  confiscated  property 
went  by  law  to  the  inquisitors.  She  was  the  hun- 
dred thousandth  victim  of  the  doctrine  of  demoniacs, 
persons  possessed  by  devils  and  exorcisms,  and  of 
the  real  devils  who  swayed  the  world. 

DESTINY. 

Of  all  the  books  written  in  the  western  climes  of 
the  world,  which  have  reached  our  times.  Homer  is 
the  most  ancient.  In  his  works  we  find  the  manners 
of  profane  antiquity,  coarse  heroes,  and  material 
gods,  made  after  the  image  of  man,  but  mixed  up 
with  reveries  and  absurdities ;  we  also  find  the  seeds 
of  philosophy,  and  more  particularly  the  idea  of  des- 
tiny, or  necessity,  who  is  the  dominatrix  of  the  gods, 
as  the  gods  are  of  the  world. 

When  the  magnanimous  Hector  determines  to 
fight  the  magnanimous  Achilles,  and  runs  away  with 
all  possible  speed,  making  the  circuit  of  the  city 
three  times,  in  order  to  increase  his  vigor ;  when 
Homer  compares  the  light-footed  Achilles,  who  pur- 
sues him,  to  a  man  that  is  asleep !  and  when  Madame 
Dacier  breaks  into  a  rapture  of  admiration  at  the  art 


Dictionary.  87 

and  meaning  exhibited  in  this  passage,  it  is  precisely 
then  that  Jupiter,  desirous  of  saving  the  great  Hec- 
tor who  has  offered  up  to  him  so  many  sacrifices,  be- 
thinks him  of  consulting  the  destinies,  upon  weigh- 
ing the  fates  of  Hector  and  Achilles  in  a  balance. 
He  finds  that  the  Trojan  must  inevitably  be  killed  by 
the  Greek,  and  is  not  only  unable  to  oppose  it,  but 
from  that  moment  Apollo,  the  guardian  genius  of 
Hector,  is  compelled  to  abandon  him.  It  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  Homer  is  frequently  extravagant,  and 
even  on  this  very  occasion  displays  a  contradictory 
flow  of  ideas,  according  to  the  privilege  of  antiquity ; 
but  yet  he  is  the  first  in  whom  we  meet  with  the 
notion  of  destiny.  It  may  be  concluded,  then,  that 
in  his  days  it  was  a  prevalent  one. 

The  Pharisees,  among  the  small  nation  of  Jews, 
did  not  adopt  the  idea  of  a  destiny  till  many  ages 
after.  For  these  Pharisees  themselves,  who  were 
the  most  learned  class  among  the  Jews,  w^ere  but  of 
very  recent  date.  They  mixed  up,  in  Alexandria,  a 
portion  of  the  dogmas  of  the  Stoics  with  their 
ancient  Jewish  ideas.  St.  Jerome  goes  so  far  as  to 
state  that  their  sect  is  but  a  little  anterior  to  our  vul- 
gar era. 

Philosophers  would  never  have  required  the  aid 
of  Homer,  or  of  the  Pharisees,  to  be  convinced  that 
everything  is  performed  according  to  immutable 
laws,  that  everything  is  ordained,  that  everything 
is,  in  fact,  necessary.  The  manner  in  which  they 
reason  is  as  follows : 


88  Philosophical 

Either  the  world  subsists  by  its  own  nature,  by 
its  own  physical  laws,  or  a  Supreme  Being  has 
formed  it  according  to  His  supreme  laws :  in  both 
cases  these  laws  are  immovable ;  in  both  cases  every- 
thing is  necessary ;  heavy  bodies  tend  towards  the 
centre  of  the  earth  without  having  any  power  or  ten- 
dency to  rest  in  the  air.  Pear-trees  cannot  produce 
pine-apples.  The  instinct  of  a  spaniel  cannot  be  the 
instinct  of  an  ostrich;  everything  is  arranged,  ad- 
justed, and  fixed. 

Man  can  have  only  a  certain  number  of  teeth, 
hairs,  and  ideas ;  and  a  period  arrives  when  he  neces- 
sarily loses  his  teeth,  hair,  and  ideas. 

It  is  contradictory  to  say  that  yesterday  should 
not  have  been ;  or  that  to-day  does  not  exist ;  it  is 
just  as  contradictory  to  assert  that  that  which  is  to 
come  will  not  inevitably  be. 

Could  you  derange  the  destiny  of  a  single  fly 
there  would  be  no  possible  reason  why  you  should 
not  control  the  destiny  of  all  other  flies,  of  all  other 
animals,  of  all  men,  of  all  nature.  You  would  find, 
in  fact,  that  you  were  more  powerful  than  God. 

Weak-minded  persons  say:  "My  physician  has 
brought  my  aunt  safely  through  a  mortal  disease ; 
he  has  added  ten  years  to  my  aunt's  life."  Otliers  of 
more  judgment  say,  the  prudent  man  makes  his  own 
destiny. 

Nulhan  nunien  abest,  si  sit  Prudentia,  sed  te 
Nosfacimus,  Fortuna,  deam  cce/oqtte  locamtis. 

— Juvenal,  Sat.  x.  v.  365. 


Dictionary.  89 

We  call  on  Fortune,  and  her  aid  implore, 
While  Prudence  is  the  goddess  to  adore. 

But  frequently  the  prudent  man  succumbs  under  his 
destiny  instead  of  making  it ;  it  is  destiny  which 
makes  men  prudent.  Profound  pohticians  assure  us 
that  if  Cromwell,  Ludlow,  Ireton,  and  a  dozen 
other  parliamentary  leaders,  had  been  assassinated 
eight  days  before  Charles  I.  had  his  head  cut  off, 
that  king  would  have  continued  alive  and  have  died 
in  his  bed ;  they  are  right ;  and  they  may  add,  that 
if  all  England  had  been  swallowed  up  in  the  sea, 
that  king  would  not  have  perished  on  a  scaffold  be- 
fore Whitehall.  But  things  were  so  arranged  that 
Charles  w^as  to  have  his  head  cut  off. 

Cardinal  d'Ossat  was  unquestionably  more  clever 
than  an  idiot  of  the  petites  maisons;  but  is  it  not 
evident  that  the  organs  of  the  wise  d'Ossat  were  dif- 
ferently formed  than  those  of  that  idiot? — Just  as 
the  organs  of  a  fox  are  different  from  those  of  a 
crane  or  a  lark. 

Your  physician  saved  your  aunt,  but  in  so  doing 
he  certainly  did  not  contradict  the  order  of  nature, 
but  followed  it.  It  is  clear  that  your  aunt  could  not 
prevent  her  birth  in  a  certain  place,  that  she  could 
not  help  being  affected  by  a  certain  malady,  at  a  cer- 
tain time ;  that  the  physician  could  be  in  no  other 
place  than  where  he  w^as,  that  your  aunt  could  not 
but  apply  to  him,  that  he  could  not  but  prescribe 
medicines  which  cured  her,  or  were  thought  to  cure 
her,  while  nature  was  the  sole  physician. 


90  Philosophical 

A  peasant  thinks  that  it  hailed  upon  his  field  by 
chance;  but  the  philosopher  knows  that  there  was 
no  chance,  and  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible,  ac- 
cording to  the  constitution  of  the  world,  for  it  not 
to  have  hailed  at  that  very  time  and  place. 

There  are  some  who,  being  shocked  by  this  truth, 
concede  only  half  of  it,  like  debtors  who  offer  one 
moiety  of  their  property  to  their  creditors,  and  ask 
remission  for  the  other.  There  are,  they  say,  some 
events  which  are  necessary,  and  others  which  are 
not  so.  It  would  be  curious  for  one  part  of  the 
world  to  be  changed  and  the  other  not;  that  one 
part  of  what  happens  should  happen  inevitably,  and 
another  fortuitously.  When  we  examine  the  ques- 
tion closely,  W'C  see  that  the  doctrine  opposed  to  that 
of  destiny  is  absurd ;  but  many  men  are  destined  to 
be  bad  reasoners,  others  not  to  reason  at  all,  and 
others  to  persecute  those  who  reason  well  or  ill. 

Some  caution  us  by  saying,  "Do  not  believe  in 
fatalism,  for,  if  you  do,  everything  appearing  to  you 
unavoidable,  you  will  exert  yourself  for  nothing; 
you  will  sink  down  in  indifference ;  you  will  regard 
neither  wealth,  nor  honors,  nor  praise ;  you  will  be 
careless  about  acquiring  anything  whatever;  you 
will  consider  yourself  meritless  and  powerless ;  no 
talent  will  be  cultivated,  and  all  will  be  overwhelmed 
in  apathy." 

Do  not  be  afraid,  gentlemen ;  we  shall  always 
have  passions  and  prejudices,  since  it  is  our  destiny 
to  be  subjected  to  prejudices  and  passions.  We  shall 


Dictionary.  91 

very  well  know  that  it  no  more  depends  upon  us  to 
have  great  merit  or  superior  talents  than  to  have  a 
fine  head  of  hair,  or  a  beautiful  hand ;  we  shall  be 
convinced  that  we  ought  to  be  vain  of  nothing,  and 
yet  vain  we  shall  always  be. 

I  have  necessarily  the  passion  for  writing  as  I 
now  do ;  and,  as  for  you,  you  have  the  passion  for 
censuring  me ;  we  are  both  equally  fools,  both 
equally  the  sport  of  destiny.  Your  nature  is  to  do 
ill,  mine  is  to  love  truth,  and  publish  it  in  spite  of 
you. 

The  owl,  while  supping  upon  mice  in  his  ruined 
tower,  said  to  the  nightingale,  "Stop  your  singing 
there  in  your  beautiful  arbor,  and  come  to  my  hole 
that  I  may  eat  you."  The  nightingale  replied,  "I 
am  born  to  sing  where  I  am,  and  to  laugh  at  you." 

You  ask  me  what  is  to  become  of  liberty:  I  do 
not  understand  you ;  I  do  not  know  what  the  lib- 
erty you  speak  of  really  is.  You  have  been  so  long 
disputing  about  the  nature  of  it  that  you  do  not 
understand  it.  If  you  are  willing,  or  rather,  if  you 
are  able  to  examine  with  me  coolly  what  it  is,  turn 
to  the  letter  L. 

DEVOTEE. 

The  word  devout  (devot)  signifies  devoted 
(dh'OJie),  and,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  can 
only  be  applicable  to  monks,  and  to  females  belong- 
ing to  some  religious  order  and  under  vows.  But 
as  the  gospel  makes  no  mention  of  vows  or  devotees, 


92  Philosophical 

the  title  should  not,  in  fact,  be  given  to  any  person : 
the  whole  world  ought  to  be  equally  just.  A  man 
who  calls  himself  devout  is  like  a  plebeian  who  calls 
himself  a  marquis ;  he  arrogates  a  quality  which 
does  not  belong  to  him ;  he  thinks  himself  a  better 
man  than  his  neighbor.  We  pardon  this  folly  in 
women;  their  weakness  and  frivolity  render  them 
excusable;  they  pass,  poor  things,  from  a  lover  to 
a  spiritual  director  with  perfect  sincerity,  but  we 
cannot  pardon  the  knaves  who  direct  them,  who 
abuse  their  ignorance,  and  establish  the  throne  of 
their  pride  on  the  credulity  of  the  sex.  They  form 
a  snug  mystical  harem,  composed  of  seven  or  eight 
elderly  beauties  subjugated  by  the  weight  of  inoccu- 
pation, and  almost  all  these  subjects  pay  tribute  to 
their  new  master.  No  young  women  without  lovers  ; 
no  elderly  devotee  without  a  director. — Oh,  how 
much  more  shrewd  are  the  Orientals  than  we!  A 
pasha  never  says,  "We  supped  last  night  with  the 
aga  of  the  janissaries,  who  is  my  sister's  lover ;  and 
with  the  vicar  of  the  mosque,  who  is  my  wife's  di- 
rector !" 

DIAL. 

Dial  of  Ahac. 
It  is  well  known  that  everything  is  miraculous  in 
the  history  of  the  Jews ;  the  miracle  performed  in 
favor  of  King  Hezekiah  on  the  dial  of  Ahaz  is  one 
of  the  greatest  that  ever  took  place :  it  is  evident 
that  the  whole  earth  must  have  been  deranged,  the 


Dictionary.  93 

course  of  the  stars  changed  forever,  and  the  periods 
of  the  ecHpses  of  the  sun  and  moon  so  altered  as  to 
confuse  all  the  ephemerides.  This  was  the  second 
time  the  prodigy  happened.  Joshua  had  stopped  the 
sun  at  noon  on  Gibeon,  and  the  moon  on  Ascalon,  in 
order  to  get  time  to  kill  a  troop  of  Amorites  al- 
ready crushed  by  a  shower  of  stones  from  heaven. 

The  sun,  instead  of  stopping  for  King  Hezekiah, 
went  back,  which  is  nearly  the  same  thing,  only  dif- 
ferently described. 

In  the  first  place  Isaiah  said  to  Hezekiah,  who 
was  sick,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  set  thine  house  in 
order ;    for  thou  shalt  die  and  not  live." 

Hezekiah  wept  and  God  was  softened ;  He  signi- 
fied to  him,  through  Isaiah,  that  he  should  still  live 
fifteen  years,  and  that  in  three  days  he  should  go  to 
the  temple ;  then  Isaiah  brought  a  plaster  of  figs  and 
put  it  on  the  king's  ulcers,  and  he  was  cured — "et 
curatus  est." 

Hezekiah  demanded  a  sign  to  convince  him  that 
he  should  be  cured.  Isaiah  said  to  him,  "Shall  the 
shadow  go  forward  ten  degrees,  or  go  back  ten  de- 
grees?" And  Hezekiah  answered,  "It  is  a  light 
thing  for  the  shadow  to  go  down  ten  degrees;  let 
the  shadow  return  backward  ten  degrees."  And 
Isaiah  the  prophet  cried  unto  the  Lord,  and  He 
brought  the  shadow  ten  degrees  backwards  from 
the  point  to  which  it  had  gone  down  on  the  dial  of 
Ahaz. 

We  should  like  to  know  what  this  dial  of  Ahaz 


94  Philosophical 

was ;  whether  it  was  the  W' ork  of  a  dialmaker  named 
Ahaz,  or  whether  it  was  a  present  made  to  a  king  of 
that  name,  it  is  an  object  of  curiosity.  There  have 
been  many  disputes  on  this  dial ;  the  learned  have 
proved  that  the  Jews  never  knew  either  clocks  or 
dials  before  their  captivity  in  Babylon — the  only 
time,  say  they,  in  which  they  learned  anything  of  the 
Chaldaeans,  or  the  greater  part  of  the  nation  began 
to  read  or  write.  It  is  even  known  that  in  their  lan- 
guage they  had  no  w^ords  to  express  clock,  dial, 
geometry,  or  astronomy ;  and  in  the  Book  of  Kings 
the  dial  of  Ahaz  is  called  the  hour  of  the  stone. 

But  the  grand  question  is  to  know  how  King 
Hezekiah,  the  possessor  of  this  clock,  or  dial  of  the 
sun — this  hour  of  stone — could  tell  that  it  was  easy 
to  advance  the  sun  ten  degrees.  It  is  certainly  as 
difficult  to  make  it  advance  against  its  ordinary 
motion  as  to  make  it  go  backward. 

The  proposition  of  the  prophet  appears  as  aston- 
ishing as  the  discourse  of  the  king :  Shall  the 
shadow  go  forward  ten  degrees,  or  go  back  ten  de- 
grees? That  would  have  been  well  said  in  some 
town  of  Lapland,  where  the  longest  day  of  the  year 
is  twenty  hours  ;  but  at  Jerusalem,  where  the  longest 
day  of  the  year  is  about  fourteen  hours  and  a  half,  it 
was  absurd.  The  king  and  the  prophet  deceivec' 
each  other  grossly.  We  do  not  deny  the  miracle, 
we  firmly  believe  it ;  we  only  remark  that  Hezekiah 
and  Isaiah  knew  not  what  they  said.  Whatever 
the  hour,  it  was  a  thing  equally  impossible  to  make 


Dictionary.  95 

the  shadow  of  the  dial  advance  or  recede  ten  hours. 
If  it  were  two  hours  after  noon,  the  prophet  could, 
no  doubt,  have  very  well  made  the  shadow  of  the 
dial  go  back  to  four  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  but  in 
this  case  he  could  not  have  advanced  it  ten  hours, 
since  then  it  would  have  been  midnight,  and  at  that 
time  it  is  not  usual  to  have  a  shadow  of  the  sun  in 
perfection. 

It  is  difficult  to  discover  when  this  strange  his- 
tory was  written,  but  perhaps  it  was  towards  the 
time  in  which  the  Jews  only  confusedly  knew  that 
there  were  clocks  and  sun-dials.  In  that  case  it  is 
true  that  they  got  but  a  very  imperfect  knowledge  of 
these  sciences  until  they  went  to  Babylon.  There  is 
a  still  greater  difficulty  of  which  the  commentators 
have  not  thought;  which  is  that  the  Jews  did  not 
count  by  hours  as  we  do. 

The  same  miracle  happened  in  Greece,  the  day 
that  Atreus  served  up  the  children  of  Thyestes  for 
their  father's  supper. 

The  same  miracle  was  still  more  sensibly  per- 
formed at  the  time  of  Jupiter's  intrigue  with  Alc- 
mena.  It  required  a  night  double  the  natural  length 
to  form  Hercules.  These  adventures  are  common 
in  antiquity,  but  very  rare  in  our  days,  in  which  all 
things  have  degenerated. 

DICTIONARY. 

The  invention  of  dictionaries,  which  was  un- 
known to  antiquity,  is  of  the  most  unquestionable 


96  Philosophical 

utility;  and  the  "Encyclopaedia,"  which  was  sug- 
gested by  ^Messrs.  d'Alembert  and  Diderot,  and  so 
successfully  completed  by  them  and  their  associates, 
notwithstanding  all  its  defects,  is  a  decisive  evidence 
of  it.  What  we  find  there  under  the  article  "Dic- 
tionary" would  be  a  sufficient  instance;  it  is  done 
by  the  hand  of  a  master. 

I  mean  to  speak  here  only  of  a  new*  species  of 
historical  dictionaries,  which  contain  a  series  of  lies 
and  satires  in  alphabetical  order;  such  is  the  "His- 
torical Literary  and  Critical  Dictionary,"  containing 
a  summary  of  the  lives  of  celebrated  men  of  every 
description,  and  printed  in  1758,  in  six  volumes, 
octavo,  without  the  name  of  the  author. 

The  compilers  of  that  work  begin  with  declaring 
that  it  was  undertaken  by  the  advice  of  the  author  of 
the  "Ecclesiastical  Gazette,"  "a  formidable  writer," 
they  add,  "whose  arrow,"  w'hich  had  already  been 
compared  to  that  of  Jonathan,  "never  returned  back, 
and  was  always  steeped  in  the  blood  of  the  slain,  in 
the  carnage  of  the  valiant." — "A  sanguine  iiitcr- 
fectorum  ah  adipe  fortium  sagitta  Jonathce  nunquain 
ahiit  retrorsum." 

It  will,  no  doubt,  be  easily  admitted  that  the  con- 
nection between  Jonathan,  the  son  of  Saul,  who  was 
killed  at  the  battle  of  Gilboa,  and  a  Parisian  convul- 
sionary,  who  scribbles  ecclesiastical  notices  in  his 
garret,  in  1758,  is  wonderfully  striking. 

The  author  of  this  preface  speaks  in  it  of  the  great 
Colbert.    We  should  conceive,  at  first,  that  the  great 


Dictionary.  97 

statesman  who  conferred  such  vast  benefits  on 
France  is  alluded  to ;  no  such  thing,  it  is  a  bishop  of 
Montpellier.  He  complains  that  no  other  dictionary 
has  bestowed  sufficient  praise  on  the  celebrated  Abbe 
d'Asfeld,  the  illustrious  Boursier,  the  famous 
Genes,  the  immortal  Laborde,  and  that  the  lash  of 
invective  on  the  other  hand  has  not  been  sufficiently 
applied  to  Languet,  archbishop  of  Sens,  and  a  person 
of  the  name  of  Fillot,  all,  as  he  pretends,  men  well 
known  from  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  frozen 
ocean.  He  engages  to  be  "animated,  energetic,  and 
sarcastic,  on  a  principle  of  religion";  that  he  will 
make  his  countenance  "sterner  than  that  of  his  ene- 
mies, and  his  front  harder  than  their  front,  accord- 
ing to  the  words  of  Ezekiel,"  etc. 

He  declares  that  he  has  put  in  contribution  all 
the  journals  and  all  the  anas ;  and  he  concludes  with 
hoping  that  heaven  will  bestow  a  blessing  on  his 
labors. 

In  dictionaries  of  this  description,  which  are 
merely  party  works,  we  rarely  find  what  we  are  in 
quest  of,  and  often  what  we  are  not.  Under  the 
word  "Adonis,"  for  example,  we  learn  that  Venus 
fell  in  love  with  him ;  but  not  a  w^ord  about  the  wor- 
ship of  Adonis,  or  Adonai  among  the  Phcenicians — 
nothinp;'  about  those  very  ancient  and  celebrated  fes- 
tivals, those  lamentations  succeeded  by  rejoicings, 
which  were  manifest  allegories,  like  the  feasts  of 
Ceres,  of  Isis,     and  all  the  mysteries  of  antiquity. 

But,  in  compensation,  we  find  Adkichomia  a  devotee. 

Vol.  8— T 


98  Philosophical 

who  translated  David's  psalms  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury; and  Adkichomus,  apparently  her  relation,  who 
wrote  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  in  low  German. 

We  may  well  suppose  that  all  the  individuals  of 
the  faction  which  employed  this  person  are  loaded 
with  praise,  and  their  enemies  with  abuse.  The 
author,  of  the  crew  of  authors  who  have  put  to- 
gether this  vocabulary  of  trash,  say  of  Nicholas 
Boindin,  attorney-general  of  the  treasures  of  France, 
and  a  member  of  the  Academy  of  Belles-lettres,  that 
he  was  a  poet  f.nd  an  atheist. 

That  magistrate,  however,  never  printed  any 
verses,  and  never  wrote  anything  on  metaphysics  or 
religion. 

He  adds  that  Boindin  will  be  ranked  by  pos- 
terity among  the  Vaninis,  the  Spinozas,  and  the 
Hobbeses.  He  is  ignorant  that  Hobbes  never  pro- 
fessed atheism — -that  he  merely  subjected  religion 
to  the  sovereign  power,  which  he  denominates  the 
Leviathan.  He  is  ignorant  that  Vanini  was  not  an 
atheist;  that  the  term  "atheist"  is  not  to  be  found 
even  in  the  decree  which  condemned  him ;  and  that 
he  was  accused  of  impiety  for  having  strenuously 
opposed  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  and  for  having 
disputed  with  indiscretion  and  acrimony  against  a 
counsellor  of  the  parliament  of  Toulouse,  called 
Francon,  or  Franconi,  who  had  the  credit  of  getting 
him  burned  to  death ;  for  the  latter  burn  whom  they 
please  ;  witness  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  Michael  Serve- 
tus,  the  Counsellor  Dubourg,  the  wife  of  Marshal 


Dictionary.  99 

d'Ancre,  Urbain  Grandier,  Morin,  and  the  books  of 
the  Jansenists.  See,  moreover,  the  apology  for 
Vanini  by  the  learned  Lacroze,  and  the  article  on 
"Atheism." 

The  vocabulary  treats  Boindin  as  a  miscreant ; 
his  relations  were  desirous  of  proceeding  at  law  and 
punishing  an  author,  who  himself  so  well  deserved 
the  appellation  which  he  so  infamously  applied  to  a 
man  who  was  not  merely  a  magistrate,  but  also 
learned  and  estimable ;  but  the  calumniator  con- 
cealed himself,  like  most  libellers,  under  a  fictitious 
name. 

Immediately  after  having  applied  such  shameful 
language  to  a  man  respectable  compared  with  him- 
self, he  considers  him  as  an  irrefragable  witness,  be- 
cause Boindin — whose  unhappy  temper  was  well 
known — left  an  ill-written  and  exceedingly  ill-ad- 
vised memorial,  in  which  he  accuses  La  Motte — one 
of  the  worthiest  men  in  the  world,  a  geometrician, 
and  an  ironmonger — with  having  written  the  infa- 
mous verses  for  which  Jean  Baptiste  Rousseau  was 
convicted.  Finally,  in  the  list  of  Boindin's  works,  he 
altogether  omits  his  excellent  dissertations  printed 
in  the  collection  of  the  Academy  of  Belles-lettres,  of 
which  he  was  a  highly  distinguished  member. 

The  article  on"Fontenelle"  is  nothing  but  a  satire 
upon  that  ingenious  and  learned  academician,  whose 
science  and  talents  are  esteemed  by  the  whole  of 
literary  Europe.  The  author  has  the  effrontery  to 
say  that  "his  'History  of  Oracles'  does  no  honor  to 


lOO  Philosophical 

his  religion."  If  Van  Dale,  the  author  of  the  "His- 
tory of  Oracles,"  and  his  abridger,  Fontenelle,  had 
lived  in  the  time  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  Roman 
repubhc,  it  might  have  been  said  with  reason  that 
they  were  rather  good  philosophers  than  good 
pagans ;  but,  to  speak  sincerely,  what  injury  do  they 
do  to  Christianity  by  showing  that  the  pagan  priests 
were  a  set  of  knaves?  Is  it  not  evident  that  the  au- 
thors of  the  libel,  miscalled  a  dictionary,  are  plead- 
ing their  own  cause?  "Jam  proxiiuus  ardet  Uca- 
legon."  But  would  it  be  offering  an  insult  to  the 
Christian  religion  to  prove  the  knavery  of  the  Con- 
vulsionaries  ?  Government  has  done  more ;  it  has 
punished  them  without  being  accused  of  irreligion. 

The  libeller  adds  that  he  suspects  that  Fonte- 
nelle never  performed  the  duties  of  a  Christian  but 
out  of  contempt  for  Christianity  itself.  It  is  a 
strange  species  of  madness  on  the  part  of  these 
fanatics  to  be  always  proclaiming  that  a  philosopher 
cannot  be  a  Christian.  They  ought  to  be  excom- 
municated and  punished  for  this  alone ;  for  assur- 
edly it  implies  a  wish  to  destroy  Christianity  to  as- 
sert that  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  a  good 
reasoner  and  at  the  same  time  believe  a  religion  so 
reasonable  and  holy. 

Des  Yveteaux,  preceptor  of  Louis  XIV.,  is  ac- 
cused of  having  lived  and  died  without  religion.  It 
seems  as  if  these  compilers  had  none ;  or  at  least  as 
if,  while  violating  all  the  precepts  of  the  true  one, 


Dictionary.  loi 

they  were  searching  about  everywhere  for  accom- 
plices. 

The  very  gentlemanly  writer  of  these  articles  is 
wonderfully  pleased  with  exhibiting  all  the  bad 
verses  that  have  been  written  on  the  French  Acad- 
emy, and  various  anecdotes  as  ridiculous  as  they  are 
false.    This  also  is  apparently  out  of  zeal  for  religion. 

I  ought  not  to  lose  an  opportunity  of  refuting  an 
absurd  story  which  has  been  much  circulated,  and 
which  is  repeated  exceedingly  malapropos  under 
the  article  of  the  "Abbe  Gedoyn,"  upon  whom  the 
writer  falls  foul  with  great  satisfaction,  because  in 
his  youth  he  had  been  a  Jesuit ;  a  transient  weak- 
ness, of  which  I  know  he  repented  all  his  life. 

The  devout  and  scandalous  compiler  of  the  dic- 
tionary asserts  that  the  Abbe  Gedoyn  slept  with  the 
celebrated  Ninon  de  I'Enclos  on  the  very  night  of 
her  completing  her  eightieth  year.  It  certainly  was 
not  exactly  befitting  in  a  priest  to  relate  this  anec- 
dote in  a  pretended  dictionary  of  illustrious  men. 
Such  a  foolery,  however,  is  in  fact  highly  improba- 
ble ;  and  I  can  take  upon  me  to  assert  that  nothing 
can  be  more  false.  The  same  anecdote  was  formerly 
put  down  to  the  credit  of  the  Abbe  Chateauneuf, 
who  was  not  very  difficult  in  his  amours,  and  who, 
it  was  said,  had  received  Ninon's  favors  when  she 
was  of  the  age  of  sixty,  or,  rather,  had  conferred 
upon  her  his  own.  In  early  life  I  saw  a  great  deal 
of  the  Abbe  Gedoyn,  the  Abbe  Chateauneuf,  and 


I02  Philosophical 

Mademoiselle  de  rEnclos ;  and  I  can  truly  declare 
that  at  the  age  of  eighty  years  her  countenance  bore 
the  most  hideous  marks  of  old  age — that  her  person 
was  afiflicted  with  all  the  infirmities  belonging  to  that 
stage  of  life,  and  that  her  mind  was  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  maxims  of  an  austere  philosophy. 

Under  the  article  on  "Deshoulieres"  the  compiler 
pretends  that  lady  was  the  same  who  was  designated 
under  the  term  prude  (prccieusc)  in  Boileau's  satire 
upon  women.  Never  was  any  woman  more  free 
from  such  weakness  than  Madame  Deshoulieres ; 
she  always  passed  for  a  woman  of  the  best  society, 
possessed  great  simplicity,  and  was  highly  agreeable 
in  conversation. 

The  article  on  "La  Motte"  abounds  with  atrocious 
abuse  of  that  academician,  who  was  a  man  of  very 
amiable  manners,  and  a  philosophic  poet  who  pro- 
duced excellent  works  of  every  description.  Finally 
the  author,  in  order  to  secure  the  sale  of  his  book  of 
six  volumes,  has  made  of  it  a  slanderous  libel. 

His  hero  is  Carre  de  Montgeron,  who  presented 
to  the  king  a  collection  of  the  miracles  performed  by 
the  Convulsionaries  in  the  cemetery  of  St.  Medard  ; 
who  became  mad  and  died  insane. 

The  interest  of  the  republic  of  literature  and 
reason  demands  that  those  libellers  should  be  deliv- 
ered up  to  public  indignation,  lest  their  example, 
operating  upon  the  sordid  love  of  gain,  should  stim- 
ulate others  to  imitation ;  and  the  more  so,  as 
nothing  is  so  easy  as  to  copy  books  in  alphabetical 


Dictionary.  1 03 

order,  and  add  to  them  insipidities,  calumnies,  and 
abuse. 

Extract  from  the  Reflections  of  an  Acadeniician  on 
the  "Dictionary  of  the  French  Academy." 

It  would  be  desirable  to  state  the  natural  and  in- 
contestable etymology  of  every  word,  to  compare 
the  application,  the  various  significations,  the  extent 
of  the  word,  with  use  of  it ;  the  dififerent  accepta- 
tions, the  strength  or  weakness  of  correspondent 
terms  in  foreign  languages ;  and  finally,  to  quote  the 
best  authors  who  have  used  the  word,  to  show  the 
greater  or  less  extent  of  meaning  which  they  have 
given  to  it  and  to  remark  whether  it  is  more  fit  for 
poetry  than  prose. 

For  example,  I  have  observed  that  the  "in- 
clemency" of  the  weather  is  ridiculous  in  history, 
because  that  term  has  its  origin  in  the  anger  of 
heaven,  which  is  supposed  to  be  manifested  by  the 
intemperateness,  irregularities,  and  rigors  of  the 
seasons,  by  the  violence  of  the  cold,  the  disorder  of 
the  atmosphere,  by  tempests,  storms,  and  pestilential 
exhalations.  Thus  then  inclemency,  being  a  meta- 
phor, is  consecrated  to  poetry. 

I  have  given  to  the  word  "impotence"  all  the 
acceptations  which  it  receives.  I  showed  the  correct- 
ness of  the  historian,  who  speaks  of  the  impotence  of 
King  Alphonso,  without  explaining  whether  he  re- 
ferred to  that  of  resisting  his  brother,  or  that  with 
which  he  was  charged  by  his  wife. 


I04  Philosophical 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  epithets  "irre- 
sistible" and  "incurable"  require  very  delicate  man- 
agement. The  first  who  used  the  expression,  "the 
irresistible  impulse  of  genius,"  made  a  very  fortunate 
hit ;  because,  in  fact,  the  question  was  in  relation  to 
a  great  genius  throwing  itself  upon  its  own  re- 
sources in  spite  of  all  difficulties.  Those  imitators 
who  have  employed  the  expression  in  reference  to 
very  inferior  men  are  plagiarists  who  know  not 
how  to  dispose  of  what  they  steal. 

As  soon  as  the  man  of  genius  has  made  a  new  ap- 
plication of  any  word  in  the  language,  copyists  are 
not  wanting  to  apply  it,  very  malapropos,  in  twenty 
places,  without  giving  the  inventor  any  credit. 

I  do  not  know  that  a  single  one  of  these  words, 
termed  by  Boileau  "foundlings"  {des  mots  trouves) 
a  single  new  expression  of  genius,  is  to  be  found  in 
any  tragic  author  since  Racine,  until  within  the  last 
few  years.  These  words  are  generally  lax,  inef- 
fective, stale,  and  so  ill  placed  as  to  produce  a  bar- 
barous style.  To  the  disgrace  of  the  nation,  these 
Visigothic  and  Vandal  productions  were  for  a  cer- 
tain time  extolled,  panegyrized,  and  admired  in  the 
journals,  especially  as  they  came  out  under  the  pro- 
tection of  a  certain  lady  of  distinction,  who  knew 
nothing  at  all  about  the  subject.  We  have  recovered 
from  all  this  now ;  and,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
the  whole  race  of  such  productions  is  extinct  for- 
ever. 

I  did  not  in  the  first  instance  intend  to  make  all 


Dictionary.  105 

these  reflections,  but  to  put  the  reader  in  a  situation 
to  make  them.  I  have  shown  at  the  letter  E  that 
our  c  mute,  with  which  w-e  are  reproached  by  an 
Itahan,  is  precisely  what  occasions  the  delicious  har- 
mony of  our  language  : — empire,  couronne,  diadhne, 
cpouvantablc,  sensible.  This  c  mute,  which  w^e  make 
perceptible  without  articulating  it,  leaves  in  the  ear  a 
melodious  sound  like  that  of  a  bell  which  still  re- 
sounds although  it  is  no  longer  struck.  This  we 
have  already  stated  in  respect  to  an  Italian,  a  man  of 
letters,  who  came  to  Paris  to  teach  his  own  lan- 
guage, and  who,  while  there,  ought  not  to  decry  ours. 

He  does  not  perceive  the  beauty  or  necessity  of 
our  feminine  rhymes  ;  they  are  only  ^'s  mute.  This 
interweaving  of  masculine  and  feminine  rhymes 
constitutes  the  charm  of  our  verse. 

Similar  observations  upon  the  alphabet,  and  upon 
words  generally,  would  not  have  been  without 
utility ;  but  they  would  have  made  the  work  too  long. 

DIOCLETIAN. 

After  several  weak  or  tyrannic  reigns,  the 
Roman  Empire  had  a  good  emperor  in  Probus, 
whom  the  legions  massacred,  and  elected  Cams, 
who  was  struck  dead  by  lightning  while  making  war 
against  the  Persians.  His  son,  Numerianus,  was 
proclaimed  by  the  soldiers.  The  historians  tell  us 
seriously  that  he  lost  his  sight  by  weeping  for  the 
death  of  his  father,  and  that  he  was  obliged  to  be 
carried  along  with  the  army,  shut  up  in  a  close  litter. 


io6  Philosophical 

His  father-in-law  Aper  killed  him  in  his  bed,  to 
place  himself  on  the  throne ;  but  a  druid  had  pre- 
dicted in  Gaul  to  Diocletian,  one  of  the  generals  of 
the  army,  that  he  would  become  emperor  after  hav- 
ing killed  a  boar.  A  boar,  in  Latin,  is  aper.  Dio- 
cletian assembled  the  army,  killed  iVper  with  his  own 
hands  in  the  presence  of  the  soldiers,  and  thus  ac- 
complished the  prediction  of  the  druid.  The  his- 
torians who  relate  this  oracle  deserve  to  be  fed  on 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  which  the  druids  revered.  It  is 
certain  that  Diocletian  killed  the  father-in-law  of  the 
emperor,  which  was  his  first  right  to  the  throne. 
Numerianus  had  a  brother  named  Carinus,  who  was 
also  emperor,  but  being  opposed  to  the  elevation  of 
Diocletian,  he  was  killed  by  one  of  the  tribunes  of 
his  army,  which  formed  his  second  pretension  to  the 
purple.  These  were  Diocletian's  rights  to  the  throne, 
and  for  a  long  time  he  had  no  other. 

He  was  originally  of  Dalmatia,  of  the  little  town 
of  Dioclea,  of  which  he  took  the  name.  If  it  be  true 
that  his  father  was  a  laborer,  and  that  he  himself  in 
his  youth  had  been  a  slave  to  a  senator  named  Anu- 
linus,  the  fact  forms  his  finest  eulogium.  He  could 
have  owed  his  elevation  to  himself  alone ;  and  it  is 
very  clear  that  he  had  conciliated  the  esteem  of  his 
army,  since  they  forgot  his  birth  to  give  him  the  dia- 
dem. Lactantius,  a  Christian  authority,  but  rather 
partial,  pretends  that  Diocletian  was  the  greatest 
poltroon  of  the  empire.  It  is  not  very  likely  that  the 
Roman   soldiers  would  have  chosen  a  poltroon  to 


Dictionary.  107 

govern  them,  or  that  this  poltroon  would  have  passed 
through  all  the  degrees  of  the  army.  The  zeal  of 
Lactantius  agamst  a  pagan  emperor  is  very  laudable, 
but  not  judicious. 

Diocletian  continued  for  twenty  years  the  master 
of  those  fierce  legions,  who  dethroned  their  emperors 
with  as  much  facility  as  they  created  them  ;  which  is 
another  proof,  notwithstanding  Lactantius,  that  he 
was  as  great  a  prince  as  he  was  a  brave  soldier.  The 
empire  under  him  soon  regained  its  pristine 
splendor.  The  Gauls,  the  Africans,  Egyptians,  and 
British,  who  had  revolted  several  times,  were  all 
brought  under  obedience  to  the  empire ;  even  the 
Persians  were  vanquished.  So  much  success  with- 
out ;  a  still  more  happy  administration  within  ;  laws 
as  humane  as  wise,  which  still  exist  in  the  Justinian 
code ;  Rome,  Milan,  Autun,  Nicomedia,  Carthage, 
embellished  by  his  munificence ;  all  tended  to  gain 
him  the  love  and  respect  both  of  the  East  and  West; 
so  that,  two  hundred  and  forty  years  after  his  death, 
they  continued  to  reckon  and  date  from  the  first  year 
of  his  reign,  as  they  had  formerly  dated  from  the 
foundation  of  Rome.  This  is  what  is  called  the  era 
of  Diocletian  ;  it  has  also  been  called  the  era  of  mar- 
tyrs ;  but  this  is  a  mistake  of  eighteen  years,  for  it 
is  certain  that  he  did  not  persecute  any  Christian  for 
eighteen  years.  So  far  from  it,  the  first  thing  he 
did,  when  emperor,  was  to  give  a  company  of  prae- 
torian guards  to  a  Christian  named  Sebastian,  who 
is  in  the  list  of  the  saints. 


io8  Philosophical 

He  did  not  fear  to  give  a  colleague  to  the  empire 
in  the  person  of  a  soldier  of  fortune,  like  himself ; 
it  was  Maximian  Hercules,  his  friend.  The  sim- 
ilarity of  their  fortunes  had  caused  their  friendship. 
Maximian  was  also  born  of  poor  and  obscure 
parents,  and  had  been  elevated  like  Diocletian,  step 
by  step,  by  his  own  courage.  People  have  not  failed 
to  reproach  this  Maximian  with  taking  the  surname 
of  Hercules,  and  Diocletian  with  accepting  that  of 
Jove.  They  do  not  condescend  to  perceive  that  we 
have  clergymen  every  day  who  call  themselves  Her- 
cules, and  peasants  denominated  Caesar  and  Au- 
gustus. 

Diocletian  created  two  Caesars ;  the  first  was  an- 
other Maximian,  surnamed  Galerius,  who  had  for- 
merly been  a  shepherd.  It  seemed  that  Diocletian, 
the  proudest  of  men  and  the  first  introducer  of  kiss- 
ing the  imperial  feet,  showed  his  greatness  in  placing 
Caesars  on  the  throne  from  men  born  in  the  most 
abject  condition.  A  slave  and  two  peasants  were  at 
the  head  of  the  empire,  and  never  was  it  more  flour- 
ishing. 

The  second  Caesar  whom  he  created  was  of  dis- 
tinguished birth.  He  was  Constantius  Chlorus, 
great-nephew,  on  his  mother's  side^  to  the  emperor 
Claudius  n.  The  empire  was  governed  by  these 
four  princes ;  an  association  which  might  have  pro- 
duced four  civil  wars  a  year,  but  Diocletian  knew 
so  well  how  to  be  master  of  his  colleagues,  that  he 
obliged  them  always  to  respect  him,  and  even  to  live 


Dictionary.  109 

united  among  themselves.  These  princes,  with  the 
name  of  Caesars  were  in  reality  no  more  than  his 
subjects.  It  is  seen  that  he  treated  them  like  an  ab- 
solute sovereign;  for  when  the  Caesar  Galerius, 
having  been  conquered  by  the  Persians,  went  into 
Mesopotamia  to  give  him  the  account  of  his  defeat, 
he  let  him  walk  for  the  space  of  a  mile  near  his 
chariot,  and  did  not  receive  him  into  favor  until  he 
had  repaired  his  fault  and  misfortune. 

Galerius  retrieved  them  the  year  after,  in  297,  in 
a  very  signal  manner.  He  vanquished  the  king  of 
Persia  in  person. 

These  kings  of  Persia  had  not  been  cured,  by  the 
battle  of  Arbela,  of  carrying  their  wives,  daughters, 
and  eunuchs  along  with  their  armies.  Galerius,  like 
Alexander,  took  his  enemy's  wife  and  all  his  family, 
and  treated  them  with  the  same  respect.  The  peace 
was  as  glorious  as  the  victory.  The  vanquished 
ceded  five  provinces  to  the  Romans,  from  the  sands 
of  Palmyra  to  Armenia. 

Diocletian  and  Galerius  went  to  Rome  to  dazzle 
the  inhabitants  with  a  triumph  till  then  unheard  of. 
It  was  the  first  time  that  the  Roman  people  had 
seen  the  wife  and  children  of  a  king  of  Persia  in 
chains.  All  the  empire  was  in  plenty  and  prosperity. 
Diocletian  went  through  all  the  provinces,  from 
Rome  to  Egypt,  Syria,  and  Asia  Minor.  His 
ordinary  residence  was  not  at  Rome,  but  at  Nicome- 
dia,  near  the  Euxine  Sea,  either  to  watch  over  the 
Persians  and  the  barbarians,  or  because  he  was  at- 


no  Philosophical 

lached  to  a  retreat  which  he  had  himself  embellished. 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  prosperity  that  Gale- 
rius  commenced  the  persecution  against  the  Chris- 
tians, Why  had  he  left  them  in  repose  until  then, 
and  why  were  they  then  ill  treated?  Eusebius  says 
that  a  centurion  of  the  Trajan  legion,  named  Mar- 
cellus,  who  served  in  Mauritania,  assisting  with  his 
troop  at  a  feast  given  in  honor  of  the  victory  of 
Galerius,  threw  his  military  sash,  his  arms,  and  his 
branch  of  vine,  on  the  ground,  and  cried  out  loudly 
that  he  was  a  Christian  and  that  he  would  no  longer 
serve  pagans — a  desertion  which  was  punished  with 
death  by  the  council  of  war.  This  was  the  first 
known  example  of  the  famous  persecution  of  Dio- 
cletian. It  is  true  that  there  were  a  great  number 
of  Christians  in  the  armies  of  the  empire,  and  the 
interest  of  the  state  demanded  that  such  a  desertion 
should  not  be  allowed.  The  zeal  of  Marcellus  was 
pious,  but  not  reasonable.  If  at  the  feast  given  in 
Mauritania,  viands  offered  to  the  gods  of  the  empire 
were  eaten,  the  law  did  not  command  Marcellus  to 
cat  of  them,  nor  did  Christianity  order  him  to  set  the 
example  of  sedition.  There  is  not  a  country  in  the 
world  in  which  so  rash  an  action  would  not  have 
been  punished. 

However,  after  the  adventure  of  Marcellus,  it 
does  not  appear  that  the  Christians  were  thought  of 
until  the  year  303.  They  had,  at  Nicomedia,  a  superb  ' 
church,  next  to  the  palace,  which  it  exceeded  in  lofti- 
ness.    Historians  do  not  tell  us  the  reasons  why 


Dictionary.  ill 

Galerius  demanded  of  Diocletian  the  instant  destruc- 
tion of  this  church ;  but  they  tell  us  that  Diocletian 
was  a  long  time  before  he  determined  upon  it,  and 
that  he  resisted  for  almost  a  year.  It  is  very  strange 
that  after  this  he  should  be  called  the  persecutor. 
At  last  the  church  was  destroyed  and  an  edict  was 
affixed  by  which  the  Christians  were  deprived  of  all 
honors  and  dignities.  Since  they  were  then  deprived 
of  them,  it  is  evident  that  they  possessed  them.  A 
Christian  publicly  tore  the  imperial  edict  in  pieces — 
that  was  not  an  act  of  religion,  it  was  an  incitement 
to  revolt.  It  is,  therefore,  very  likely  that  an  in- 
discreet and  unreasonable  zeal  drew  down  this  fatal 
persecution.  Some  time  afterw^ards  the  palace  of 
Galerius  was  burned  down ;  he  accused  the  Chris- 
tians, and  they  accused  Galerius  of  having  himself 
set  fire  to  it,  in  order  to  get  a  pretext  for  calumni- 
ating them.  The  accusation  of  Galerius  appeared 
very  unjust;  that  which  they  entered  against  him 
was  no  less  so,  for  the  edict  having  been  already 
issued,  what  new  pretext  could  he  want?  If  he 
really  wanted  a  new  argument  to  engage  Diocletian 
to  persecute,  this  would  only  form  a  new  proof  of 
the  reluctance  of  Diocletian  to  abandon  the  Chris- 
tians, whom  he  had  always  protected ;  it  would  evi- 
dently show  that  he  wanted  new  additional  reasons 
to  determine  him  to  so  much  severity. 

It  appears  certain  that  there  were  many  Chris- 
tians tormented  in  the  empire,  but  it  is  difficult  to 
reconcile  with  the  Roman  laws  the  alleged  reported 


112  Philosophical 

tortures,  the  mutilations,  torn-out  tongues,  limbs  cut 
and  broiled,  and  all  the  insults  offered  against  mod- 
esty and  public  decency.  It  is  certain  that  no  Ro- 
man law  ever  ordered  such  punishments ;  the  aver- 
sion of  the  people  to  the  Christians  might  carry  them 
to  horrible  excesses,  but  we  do  not  anywhere  find 
that  these  excesses  were  ordered,  either  by  the  em- 
perors or  the  senate. 

It  is  very  likely  that  the  suffering  of  the  Chris- 
tians spread  itself  in  exaggerated  complaints :  the 
"Acta  Smcera"  informs  us  that  the  emperor,  being 
at  Antioch,  the  prsetor  condemned  a  Christian  child 
named  Romanus  to  be  burned ;  that  the  Jews  present 
at  the  punishment  began  to  laugh,  saying :  "We  had 
formerly  three  children,  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and 
Abednego,  who  did  not  burn  in  the  fiery  furnace  but 
these  do  burn."  At  that  instant,  to  confound  the 
Jews,  a  great  rain  extinguished  the  pile  and  the  lit- 
tle boy  walked  out  safe  and  sound,  asking,  "Where 
then  is  the  fire?"  The  account  goes  on  to  say  that 
the  emperor  commanded  him  to  be  set  free,  but  that 
the  judge  ordered  his  tongue  to  be  cut  out.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  to  believe  that  the  judge  would 
liave  the  tongue  of  a  boy  cut  out,  whom  the  emperor 
had  pardoned. 

That  which  follows  is  more  singular.  It  is  pre- 
tended that  an  old  Christian  physician  named  Aris- 
ton,  who  had  a  knife  ready,  cut  the  child's  tongue  out 
to  pay  his  court  to  the  praetor.  The  little  Romanus 
was  then  carried  back  to  prison  ;  the  iailer  asked  him 


Dictionary.  113 

the  news.  The  child  related  at  length  how  the  old 
surgeon  had  cut  out  his  tongue.  It  should  be  ob- 
served that  before  this  operation  the  child  stammered 
very  much  but  that  now  he  spoke  with  wonderful 
volubility.  The  jailer  did  not  fail  to  relate  this  mir- 
acle to  the  emperor.  They  brought  forward  the  old 
surgeon  who  swore  that  the  operation  had  been  per- 
formed according  to  the  rules  of  his  art  and  showed 
the  child's  tongue  which  he  had  properly  preserved- 
in  a  box  as  a  relic.  "Bring  hither  another  person," 
said  he,  "and  I  will  cut  his  tongue  out  in  your  maj- 
esty's presence,  and  you  will  see  if  he  can  speak." 
The  proposition  was  accepted ;  they  took  a  poor 
man  whose  tongue  the  surgeon  cut  out  as  he  had 
done  the  child's,  and  the  man  died  on  the  spot. 

I  am  willing  to  believe  that  the  "Acts"  which  re- 
late this  fact  are  as  veracious  as  their  title  pretends, 
but  they  are  still  more  simple  than  sincere,  and  it 
is  very  strange  that  Fleury,  in  his  "Ecclesiastical 
History,"  relates  such  a  prodigious  number  of  simi- 
lar incidents,  being  much  more  conducive  to  scandal 
than  edification. 

You  will  also  remark  that  in  this  year  303,  in 

which  it  is  pretended  that  Diocletian  was  present 

at  this  fine  affair  in  Antioch,  he  was  at  Rome  and 

passed  all  that  year  in  Italy.    It  is  said  that  it  was  at 

Rome,   and  in   his   presence,  that   St.   Genestus,   a 

comedian,  was  converted  on  the  stage  w^hile  playing 

in  a  comedy  against  the  Christians.  This  play  shows 

clearly  that  the  taste  of  Plautus  and  Terence  no 
Vol.  8—8 


114  Philosophical 

longer  existed ;  that  which  is  now  called  comedy,  or 
Italian  farce,  seems  to  have  originated  at  this  time. 
St.  Genestiis  represented  an  invalid ;  the  physician 
asked  him  what  was  the  matter  with  him.  "I  am  too 
unwieldy,"  said  Genestus.  "Would  you  have  us  ex- 
orcise you  to  make  you  lighter  ?"  said  the  physician. 
"No,"  replied  Genestus,  "I  will  die  a  Christian,  to  be 
raised  again  of  a  finer  stature."  Then  the  actors, 
dressed  as  priests  and  exorcists,  came  to  baptize  him, 
at  which  moment  Genestus  really  became  a  Chris- 
tian, and,  instead  of  finishing  his  part,  began  to 
preach  to  the  emperor  and  the  people.  The  ''Acta 
Sincera"  relate  this  miracle  also. 

It  is  certain  that  there  were  many  true  martyrs, 
but  it  is  not  true  that  the  provinces  were  inundated 
with  blood,  as  it  is  imagined.  Mention  is  made  of 
about  two  hundred  martyrs  towards  the  latter  days 
of  Diocletian  in  all  the  extent  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  it  is  averred,  even  in  the  letters  of  Constantine, 
that  Diocletian  had  much  less  part  in  the  persecution 
than  Galerius. 

Diocletian  fell  ill  this  year  and  feeling  himself 
weakened  he  was  the  first  who  gave  the  world  the 
example  of  the  abdication  of  empire.  It  is  not  easy 
to  know  whether  this  abdication  was  forced  or  not ; 
it  is  true,  however,  that  having  recovered  his  health 
he  lived  nine  years  equally  honored  and  peaceable  in 
his  retreat  of  Salonica,  in  the  country  of  his  birth. 
He  said  that  he  only  began  to  live  from  the  day 
of  his  retirement  and  when  he  was  pressed  to  re- 


Dictionary.  1 1  5 

mount  the  throne  he  replied  that  the  throne  was  not 
worth  the  tranquilhty  of  his  life,  and  that  he  took 
more  pleasure  in  cultivating  his  garden  than  he 
should  have  in  governing  the  whole  earth.  What 
can  be  concluded  from  these  facts  but  that  with 
great  faults  he  reigned  like  a  great  emperor  and  fin- 
ished his  life  like  a  philosopher! 

DIONYSIUS,  ST.  (THE  AREOPAGITE), 

AND  THE  FAMOUS  ECLIPSE. 

The  author  of  the  article  "Apocrypha"  has  neg- 
lected to  mention  a  hundred  works  recognized  for 
such,  and  which,  being  entirely  forgotten,  seem  not 
to  merit  the  honor  of  being  in  his  list.  We  have 
thought  it  right  not  to  omit  St.  Dionysius,  surnamed 
the  Areopagite,  who  is  pretended  to  have  been  for 
a  long  time  the  disciple  of  St.  Paul,  and  of  one 
Hierotheus,  an  unknown  companion  of  his.  He 
was,  it  is  said,  consecrated  bishop  of  Athens  by  St. 
Paul  himself.  It  is  stated  in  his  life  that  he  went 
to  Jerusalem  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  holy  Virgin  and 
that  he  found  her  so  beautiful  and  majestic  that  he 
was  strongly  tempted  to  adore  her. 

After  having  a  long  time  governed  the  Church  of 
Athens  he  went  to  confer  with  St.  John  the  evange- 
list, at  Ephesus,  and  afterwards  with  Pope  Clement 
at  Rome ;  thence  he  went  to  exercise  his  apostleship 
in  France ;  and  knowing,  says  the  historian,  that 
Paris  was  a  rich,  populous,  and  abundant  town,  and 


ii6  Philosophical 

like  other  capitals,  he  went  there  to  plant  a  citadel, 
to  lay  hell  and  infidelity  in  ruins. 

He  was  regarded  for  a  long  time  as  the  first 
bishop  of  Paris.  Harduinus,  one  of  his  historians, 
adds  that  at  Paris  he  was  exposed  to  wild  beasts, 
but,  having  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  them,  they 
crouched  at  his  feet.  The  pagan  Parisians  then 
threw  him  into  a  hot  oven  from  which  he  walked  out 
fresh  and  in  perfect  health ;  he  was  crucified  and  he 
began  to  preach  from  the  top  of  the  cross. 

They  imprisoned  him  with  his  companions  Rusti- 
cus  and  Eleutherus.  He  there  said  mass,  St.  Rusti- 
cus  performing  the  part  of  deacon  and  Eleutherus 
that  of  subdeacon.  Finally  they  were  all  three  car- 
ried to  Montmartre,  where  their  heads  were  cut  ofi', 
after  which  they  no  longer  said  mass. 

But,  according  to  Harduinus,  there  appeared  a 
still  greater  miracle.  The  body  of  St.  Dionysius 
took  its  head  in  its  hands  and  accompanied  by  an- 
gels singing  "Gloria  tibi,  Domine,  alleluia!"  carried 
it  as  far  as  the  place  where  they  afterwards  built 
him  a  church,  which  is  the  famous  church  of  St. 
Denis. 

Mestaphrastus,  Harduinus,  and  Hincmar,  bishop 
of  Rheims,  say  that  he  was  martyred  at  the  age  of 
ninety-one  years,  but  Cardinal  Baronius  proves  that 
he  was  a  hundred  and  ten,  in  which  opinion  he  is 
supported  by  Ribadeneira,  the  learned  author  of 
"Flower  of  the  Saints."  For  our  own  part  we  have 
no  opinion  on  the  subject. 


Dictionary.  117 

Seventeen  works  are  attributed  to  him,  six  of 
which  we  have  unfortunately  lost ;  the  eleven  which 
remain  to  us  have  been  translated  from  the  Greek 
by  Duns  Scotus,  Hugh  de  St.  Victor,  Albert  Mag- 
nus, and  several  other  illustrious  scholars. 

It  is  true  that  since  wholesome  criticism  has  been 
introduced  into  the  world  it  has  been  discovered 
that  all  the  books  attributed  to  Dionysius  were  writ- 
ten by  an  impostor  in  the  year  362  of  our  era,  so  that 
there  no  longer  remains  any  difficulty  on  that  head. 

Of  the  Great  Eclipse  Noticed  by  Dionysius. 

A  fact  related  by  one  of  the  unknown  authors  of 
the  life  of  Dionysius  has,  above  all,  caused  greai 
dissension  among  the  learned.  It  is  pretended  that 
this  first  bishop  of  Paris,  being  in  Egypt  in  the  town 
of  Diospolis,  or  No-Amon,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  years,  before  he  was  a  Christian,  he  was  there, 
with  one  of  his  friends,  witness  of  the  famous  eclipse 
of  the  sun  which  happened  at  the  full  moon,  at  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  and  that  he  cried  in  Greek, 
"Either  God  suflfers  or  is  afflicted  at  the  sufferings 
of  the  criminal." 

These  words  have  been  differently  related  by  dif- 
ferent authors,  but  in  the  time  of  Eusebius  of 
Caesarea  it  is  pretended  that  two  historians — the  one 
named  Phlegon  and  the  other  Thallus — had  made 
mention  of  this  miraculous  eclipse.  Eusebius  of 
Caesarea  quotes  Phlegon,  but  we  have  none  of  his 
works  now  existing.     He  said — at  least  it  is  pre- 


1 1 8  Philosophical 

tended  so — that  this  eclipse  happened  in  the  fourth 
year  of  the  two  hundredth  Olympiad,  which  would 
be  the  eighteenth  year  of  Tiberius's  reign.  There 
are  several  versions  of  this  anecdote ;  we  distrust 
them  all  and  much  more  so,  if  it  were  possible  to 
know  whether  they  reckoned  by  Olympiads  in  the 
time  of  Phlegon,  which  is  very  doubtful. 

This  important  calculation  interested  all  the  as- 
tronomers. Hodgson,  Whiston,  Gale,  Maurice,  and 
the  famous  Halley,  demonstrated  that  there  was  no 
eclipse  of  the  sun  in  this  first  year,  but  that  on  No- 
vember 24th  in  the  year  of  the  hundred  and  second 
Olympiad  an  eclipse  took  place  which  obscured  the 
sun  for  two  minutes,  at  a  quarter  past  one,  at  Jeru- 
salem. 

It  has  been  carried  still  further :  a  Jesuit  named 
Greslon  pretended  that  the  Chinese  preserved  in 
their  annals  the  account  of  an  eclipse  which  hap- 
pened near  that  time,  contrary  to  the  order  of  nature. 
They  desired  the  mathematicians  of  Europe  to  make 
a  calculation  of  it ;  it  was  pleasant  enough  to  de- 
sire the  astronomists  to  calculate  an  eclipse  which 
was  not  natural.  Finally  it  was  discovered  that 
these  Chinese  annals  do  not  in  any  way  speak  of  this 
eclipse. 

It  appears  from  the  history  of  St.  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite,  the  passage  from  Phlegon,  and  from  the 
letter  of  the  Jesuit  Greslon  that  men  like  to  impose 
upon  one  another.  But  this  prodigious  multitude  of 
lies,  far  from  harming  the  Christian  rehgion,  only 


Dictionary.  119 

serves,  on  the  contrary,  to  show  its  divinity,  since  it 
is  more  confirmed  every  day  in  spite  of  them. 


DIODORUS  OF  SICILY,  AND  HERODOTUS. 

We  will  commence  with  Herodotus  as  the  most 
ancient.  When  Henry  Stephens  entitled  his  comic 
rhapsody  "The  Apology  of  Herodotus,"  we  know 
that  his  design  was  not  to  justify  the  tales  of  this 
father  of  history ;  he  only  sports  with  us  and  shows 
that  the  enormities  of  his  own  times  were  worse  than 
those  of  the  Egyptians  and  Persians.  He  made  use 
of  the  liberty  which  the  Protestants  assumed  against 
those  of  the  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and  Roman 
churches.  He  sharply  reproaches  them  with  their 
debaucheries,  their  avarice,  their  crimes  expiated 
by  money,  their  indulgences  publicly  sold  in  the 
taverns,  and  the  false  relics  manufactured  by  their 
own  monks,  calling  them  idolaters.  He  ventures  to 
say  that  if  the  Egyptians  adored  cats  and  onions, 
the  Catholics  adore  the  bones  of  the  dead.  He  dares 
to  call  them  in  his  preliminary  discourses,  "theoph- 
ages,"  and  even  "theokeses."  We  have  fourteen 
editions  of  this  book,  for  we  relish  general  abuse, 
just  as  much  as  we  resent  that  which  we  deem  spe- 
cial and  personal. 

Henry  Stephens  made  use  of  Herodotus  only  to 
render  us  hateful  and  ridiculous ;  we  have  quite  a 
contrary  design.  We  pretend  to  show  that  the  mod- 
ern histories  of  our  ^ood  authors  since  Guicciardini 


I20  Philosophical 

are  in  general  as  wise  and  true  as  those  of  Herodo- 
tus and  Diodorus  are  foolish  and  fabulous. 

1.  \Miat  does  the  father  of  history  mean  by  say- 
ing in  the  beginning  of  his  work,  "the  Persian  his- 
torians relate  that  the  Phoenicians  were  the  authors 
of  all  the  wars.  From  the  Red  Sea  they  entered 
ours,"  etc.?  It  would  seem  that  the  Phoenicians, 
having  embarked  at  the  Isthmus  of  Suez,  arrived  at 
the  straits  qf  Babel-Mandeb,  coasted  along  Ethiopia, 
passed  the  hne,  doubled  the  Cape  of  Tempests,  since 
called  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  returned  between 
Africa  and  America,  repassed  the  line  and  entered 
from  the  ocean  into  the  Mediterranean  by  the  Pil- 
lars of  Hercules,  a  voyage  of  more  than  four  thou- 
sand of  our  long  marine  leagues  at  a  time  when  nav- 
igation was  in  its  infancy. 

2.  The  first  exploit  of  the  Phoenicians  was  to  go 
towards  Argos  to  carry  off  the  daughter  of  King 
Inachus,  after  Vk'hich  the  Greeks,  in  their  turn,  car- 
ried off  Europa,  the  daughter  of  the  king  of  Tyre. 

3.  Immediately  afterwards  comes  Candaules, 
king  of  Lydia,  who,  meeting  with  one  of  his  guards 
named  Gyges,  said  to  him,  "Thou  must  see  my  wife 
quite  naked;  it  is  absolutely  essential."  The  queen, 
learning  that  she  had  been  thus  exposed,  said  to  the 
soldier,  "You  shall  either  die  or  assassinate  my  hus- 
band and  reign  with  me."  He  chose  the  latter  alter- 
native, and  the  assassination  was  accomplished  with- 
out difficulty. 

4.  Then  follows  the  history  of  Arion,  carried  on 


Dictionary.  121 

the  back  of  a  dolphin  across  the  sea  from  the  skirts 
of  Calabria  to  Cape  Matapan,  an  extraordinary  voy- 
age of  about  a  hundred  leagues. 

5.  From  tale  to  tale — and  who  dislikes  tales  ? — 
we  arrive  at  the  infallible  oracle  of  Delphi,  which 
somehow  foretold  that  Croesus  would  cook  a  quar- 
ter of  Iamb  and  a  tortoise  in  a  copper  pan  and  that 
he  would  be  dethroned  by  a  mullet. 

6.  Among  the  inconceivable  absurdities  with 
which  ancient  history  abounds  is  there  anything  ap- 
proaching the  famine  with  which  the  Lydians  were 
tormented  for  twenty-eight  years?  This  people, 
whom  Herodotus  describes  as  being  richer  in  gold 
than  the  Peruvians,  instead  of  buying  food  from  for- 
eigners, found  no  better  expedient  than  that  of 
amusing  themselves  every  other  day  with  the  ladies 
without  eating  for  eight-and-twenty  successive 
years. 

7.  Is  there  anything  more  marvellous  than  the 
history  of  Cyrus  ?  His  grandfather,  the  Mede  Asty- 
ages,  with  a  Greek  name,  dreamed  that  his  daughter 
Mandane — another  Greek  name — inundated  all 
Asia ;  at  another  time,  that  she  produced  a  vine,  of 
which  all  Asia  ate  the  grapes,  and  thereupon  the 
good  man  Astyages  ordered  one  Harpagos,  another 
Greek,  to  murder  his  grandson  Cyrus — for  what 
grandfather  would  not  kill  his  posterity  after  dreams 
of  this  nature? 

8.  Herodotus,  no  less  a  good  naturalist  than  an 
exact  historian,  does  not  fail  to  tell  us  that  near 


122  Philosophical 

Babylon  the  earth  produced  three  hundred  ears  of 
wneat  for  one.  I  know  a  small  country  which  yields 
three  for  one.  I  should  like  to  have  been  transported 
to  Diabek  when  the  Turks  were  driven  from  it  by 
Catherine  II.  It  has  fine  corn  also  but  returns  not 
three  hundred  ears  for  one. 

9.  What  has  always  seemed  to  me  decent  and 
edifying  in  Herodotus  is  the  fine  religious  custom 
established  in  Babylon  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken — that  of  all  the  married  women  going  to 
prostitute  themselves  in  the  temple  of  Mylitta  for 
money,  to  the  first  stranger  who  presented  himself. 
We  reckon  two  millions  of  inhabitants  in  this  city ; 
the  devotion  must  have  been  ardent.  This  law  is 
very  probable  among  the  Orientals  who  have  always 
shut  up  their  women,  and  who,  more  than  six  ages 
before  Herodotus,  instituted  eunuchs  to  answer  to 
them  for  the  chastity  of  their  wives.  I  must  no 
longer  proceed  numerically ;  we  should  very  soon 
indeed  arrive  at  a  hundred. 

All  that  Diodorus  of  Sicily  says  seven  centuries 
after  Herodotus  is  of  the  same  value  in  all  that  re- 
gards antiquities  and  physics.  The  Abbe  Terrasson 
said,  "I  translate  the  text  of  Diodorus  in  all  its 
coarseness."  He  sometimes  read  us  part  of  it  at  the 
house  of  de  L^faye,  and  when  we  laughed,  he  said, 
"You  are  resolved  to  misconstrue ;  it  was  quite  the 
contrary  with  Dacier." 

The  finest  part  of  Diodorus  is  the  charming  de- 
scription of  the   island  of   Panchaica — '"Panchaica 


Dictionary,  123 

Tcllus,"  celebrated  by  Virgil :  "There  were  groves 
of  odoriferous  trees  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see, 
myrrh  and  frankincense  to  furnish  the  whole  world 
without  exhausting  it ;  fountains,  which  formed  an 
infinity  of  canals,  bordered  with  flowers,  besides  un- 
known birds,  which  sang  under  the  eternal  shades ; 
a  temple  of  marble  four  thousand  feet  long,  orna- 
mented with  columns,  colossal  statues,"  etc. 

This  puts  one  in  mind  of  the  Duke  de  la  Ferte, 
who,  to  flatter  the  taste  of  the  Abbe  Servien,  said  to 
him  one  day,  "Ah,  if  you  had  seen  my  son  who  died 
at  fifteen  years  of  age !  What  eyes  !  what  freshness 
of  complexion  !  what  an  admirable  stature  !  the  An- 
tinous  of  Belvidere  compared  to  him  was  only  like 
a  Chinese  baboon,  and  as  to  sweetness  of  manners, 
he  had  the  most  engaging  I  ever  met  with."  The 
Abbe  Servien  melted,  the  duke  of  Ferte,  warmed  by 
his  own  words,  melted  also,  both  began  to  weep, 
after  which  he  acknowledged  that  he  never  had  a 
son. 

A  certain  Abbe  Bazin,  with  his  simple  common 
sense,  doubts  another  tale  of  Diodorus.  It  is  of  a 
king  of  Egypt,  Sesostris,  who  probably  existed  no 
more  than  the  island  of  Panchaica.  The  father  of 
Sesostris,  who  is  not  named,  determined  on  the  day 
that  he  was  born  that  he  would  make  him  the  con- 
queror of  all  the  earth  as  soon  as  he  was  of  age. 
It  was  a  notable  project.  For  this  purpose  he 
brought  up  with  him  all  the  boys  who  w^ere  born  on 
the  same  day  in  Egypt,  and,  to  make  them  conquer- 


1 24  Philosophical 

ors,  he  did  not  suffer  them  to  have  their  breakfasts 
until  they  had  run  a  hundred  and  eighty  stadia, 
which  is  about  eight  of  our  long  leagues. 

When  Sesostris  was  of  age  he  departed  with  his 
racers  to  conquer  the  world.  They  were  then  about 
seventeen  hundred  and  probably  half  were  dead,  ac- 
cording to  the  ordinary  course  of  nature — and, 
above  all,  of  the  nature  of  Egypt,  which  was  deso- 
lated by  a  destructive  plague  at  least  once  in  ten 
years. 

There  must  have  been  three  thousand  four  hun- 
dred boys  born  in  Eg}'pt  on  the  same  day  as  Sesos- 
tris, and  as  nature  produces  almost  as  many  girls 
as  boys,  there  must  have  been  six  thousand  persons 
at  least  born  on  that  day.  But  women  were  confined 
every  day,  and  six  thousand  births  a  day  produce, 
at  the  end  of  the  year,  two  millions  one  hundred  and 
ninety  thousand  children.  If  you  multiply  by  thirty- 
four,  according  to  the  rule  of  Kersseboom,  you  would 
have  in  Egypt  more  than  seventy-four  millions  of 
inhabitants  in  a  country  which  is  not  so  large  as 
Spain  or  France. 

All  this  appeared  monstrous  to  the  Abbe  Bazin, 
who  had  seen  a  little  of  the  world,  and  who  judged 
only  by  what  he  had  seen. 

But  one  Larcher,  who  was  never  outside  of  the 
college  of  Mazarin  arrayed  himself  with  great  ani- 
mation on  the  side  of  Sesostris  and  his  runners.  He 
pretends  that  Herodotus,  in  speaking  of  the  Greeks, 
does  not  reckon  by  the  stadia  of  Greece,  and  that  the 


Dictionary.  125 

heroes  of  Sesostris  only  ran  four  leagues  before 
breakfast.  He  overwhelms  poor  Abbe  Bazin  with 
injurious  names  such  as  no  scholar  in  us  or  es  had 
ever  before  employed.  He  does  not  hold  with  the 
seventeen  hundred  boys,  but  endeavors  to  prove  by 
the  prophets  that  the  wives,  daughters,  and  nieces  of 
the  king  of  Babylon,  of  the  satraps,  and  the  magi, 
resorted,  out  of  pure  devotion,  to  sleep  for  money  in 
the  aisles  of  the  temple  of  Babylon  with  all  the 
camel-drivers  and  muleteers  of  Asia.  He  treats  all 
those  who  defend  the  honor  of  the  ladies  of  Baby- 
lon as  bad  Christians,  condemned  souls,  and  enemies 
to  the  state. 

He  also  takes  the  part  of  the  goat,  so  much  in 
the  good  graces  of  the  young  female  Egyptians.  It 
is  said  that  his  great  reason  was  that  he  was  allied, 
by  the  female  side,  to  a  relation  of  the  bishop  of 
Meaux,  Bossuet,  the  author  of  an  eloquent  dis- 
course on  "Universal  History" ;  but  this  is  not  a 
peremptory   reason. 

Take  care  of  the  extraordinary  stories  of  all 
kinds.  Diodorus  of  Sicily  was  the  greatest  compiler 
of  these  tales.  This  Sicilian  had  not  a  grain  of  the 
temper  of  his  countryman  Archimedes,  who  sought 
and  found  so  many  mathematical  truths. 

Diodorus  seriously  examines  the  history  of  the 
Amazons  and  their  queen  Theaestris;  the  history 
of  the  Gorgons,  who  fought  against  the  Amazons ; 
that  of  the  Titans,  and  that  of  all  the  gods.  He 
searches  into  the  history  of  Priapus  and  Hermaph- 


126  Philosophical 

roditus.  No  one  could  give  a  better  account  of 
Hercules :  this  hero  wandered  through  half  the 
earth,  sometimes  on  foot  and  alone  like  a  pilgrim, 
and  sometimes  like  a  general  at  the  head  of  a  great 
army,  and  all  his  labors  are  faithfully  discussed, 
but  this  is  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  gods  of 
Crete. 

Diodorus  justifies  Jupiter  from  the  reproach 
which  other  grave  historians  have  passed  upon  him, 
of  having  dethroned  and  mutilated  his  father.  He 
shows  how  Jupiter  fought  the  giants,  some  in  his 
island,  others  in  Phrygia,  and  afterwards  in  Mace- 
donia and  Italy;  the  number  of  children  w'hich  he 
had  by  his  sister  Juno  and  his  favorites  are  not 
omitted. 

He  describes  how  he  afterwards  became  a  god, 
and  the  supreme  god.  It  is  thus  that  all  the  ancient 
histories  have  been  written.  What  is  more  remark- 
able, they  were  sacred ;  if  they  had  not  been  sacred, 
they  would  never  have  been  read. 

It  is  clear  that  it  would  be  very  useful  if  in  all 
they  were  all  different,  and  from  province  to  prov- 
ince, and  island  to  island,  each  had  a  different  his- 
tory of  the  gods,  demi-gods,  and  heroes,  from  that 
of  their  neighbors.  But  it  should  also  be  observed 
that  the  people  never  fought  for  this  mythology. 

The  respectable  history  of  Thucydides,  which  has 
several  glimmerings  of  truth,  begins  at  Xerxes,  but, 
before  that  epoch  how  much  time  was  wasted. 


Dictionary,  127 

DIRECTOR. 

It  is  neither  of  a  director  of  finances,  a  director 
of  hospitals,  nor  a  director  of  the  royal  buildings 
that  I  pretend  to  speak,  but  of  a  director  of  con- 
science, for  that  directs  all  the  others :  it  is  the  pre- 
ceptor of  human  kind  ;  it  knows  and  teaches  all  that 
should  be  done  or  omitted  in  all  possible  cases. 

It  is  clear  that  it  would  be  very  useful  if  in  all 
courts  there  were  one  conscientious  man  whom  the 
monarch  secretly  consulted  on  most  occasions,  and 
who  would  boldly  say,  "Non  licet."  Louis  the  Just 
would  not  then  have  begun  his  mischievous  and  un- 
happy reign  by  assassinating  his  first  minister  and 
imprisoning  his  mother.  How  many  wars,  unjust 
as  fatal,  a  few  good  dictators  would  have  spared ! 
How  many  cruelties  they  would  have  prevented ! 

But  often,  while  intending  to  consult  a  lamb,  we 
consult  a  fox.  Tartufife  was  the  director  of  Orgon. 
I  should  like  to  know  who  was  the  conscientious  di- 
rector of  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

The  gospel  speaks  no  more  of  directors  than  of 
confessors.  Among  the  people  whom  our  ordinary 
courtesy  calls  Pagans  we  do  not  see  that  Scipio, 
Fabricius,  Cato,  Titus,  Trajan,  or  the  Antonines  had 
directors.  It  is  well  to  have  a  scrupulous  friend  to 
remind  you  of  your  duty.  But  your  conscience 
ought  to  be  the  chief  of  your  council. 

A  Huguenot  was  much  surprised  when  a  Catho- 
lic lady  told  him  that  she  had  a  confessor  to  ab"'^h'c 


128  Philosophical 

her  from  her  sins  and  a  director  to  prevent  her  com- 
mitting them.  "How  can  your  vessel  so  often  go 
astray,  madam,"  said  he,  "having  two  such  good 
pilots  ?" 

The  learned  observe  that  it  is  not  the  privilege  of 
every  one  to  have  a  director.  It  is  like  having  an 
equerry ;  it  only  belongs  to  ladies  of  quality.  The 
Abbe  Gobelin,  a  litigious  and  covetous  man,  directed 
Madame  de  Maintenon  only.  The  directors  of  Paris 
often  serve  four  or  five  devotees  at  once ;  they  em- 
broil them  with  their  husbands,  sometimes  with  their 
lovers,  and  occasionally  fill  the  vacant  places. 

Why  have  the  women  directors  and  the  men 
none  ?  It  was  possibly  owing  to  this  distinction  that 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Valliere  became  a  Carmelite 
when  she  was  quitted  by  Louis  XIV.,  and  that  M. 
de  Turenne,  being  betrayed  by  Madame  de  Coet- 
quin,  did  not  make  himself  a  monk. 

St.  Jerome,  and  Rufinus  his  antagonist,  were 
great  directors  of  women  and  girls.  They  did  not 
find  a  Roman  senator  or  a  military  tribune  to  gov- 
ern. These  people  profited  by  the  devout  facility  of 
the  feminine  gender.  The  men  had  too  much  beard 
on  their  chins  and  often  too  much  strength  of  mind 
for  them.  Boileau  has  given  the  portrait  of  a  direc- 
tor in  his  "Satire  on  Women,"  but  might  have  said 
something  much  more  to  the  purpose. 


Dictionary.  129 

DISPUTES. 

There  have  been  disputes  at  all  times,  on  all 
subjects : — "Mundinn  tradidit  disputationi  eorum." 
There  have  been  violent  quarrels  about  whether  the 
whole  is  greater  than  a  part ;  whether  a  body  can  be 
in  several  places  at  the  same  time;  whether  the 
whiteness  of  snow  can  exist  without  snow,  or 
the  sweetness  of  sugar  without  sugar ;  whether  there 
can  be  thinking  without  a  head,  etc. 

I  doubt  not  that  as  soon  as  a  Jansenist  shall  have 
written  a  book  to  demonstrate  that  one  and  two  are 
three,  a  Molinist  wall  start  up  and  demonstrate  that 
two  and  one  are  five. 

We  hope  to  please  and  instruct  the  reader  by 
laying  before  him  the  following  verses  on  "Dispu- 
tation." They  are  well  known  to  every  man  of  taste 
in  Paris,  but  they  are  less  familiar  to  those  among 
the  learned  who  still  dispute  on  gratuitous  predesti- 
nation, concomitant  grace,  and  that  momentous 
question — whether  the  mountains  were  produced  by 
the  sea. 

ON   DISPUTATION. 

Each  brain  its  thought,  each  season  has  its  mode; 

Manners  and  fashions  alter  every  day; 

Examine  for  yourself  whnt  others  say; — 
This  privilege  by  nature  is  bestowed; — 
But,  oh!  dispute  not — the  designs  of  heaven 
To  mortal  insight  never  can  be  given. 
What  is  the  knowledge  of  this  world  worth  knowing? 
What,  but  a  bubble  scarcely  worth  the  blowing? 
"Quite  full  of  errors  was  the  world  before;" 
Then,  to  preach  reason  is  but  one  error  more. 
Vol.  8—9 


130  Philosophical 


Viewing  this  earth  from  Luna's  elevation, 
Or  any  other  convenient  situation, 
What  shall  we  see?     The  various  tricks  of  man-. 
Here  is  a  synod — there  is  a  divan; 
Behold  the  mufti,  dervish,  iman,  bonze, 
The  lama  and  the  pope  on  equal  thrones. 
The  modern  doctor  and  the  ancient  rabbi. 
The  monk,  the  priest,  and  the  expectant  abbe: 
If  you  are  disputants,  my  friends,  pray  travel — 
When  you  come  home  again,  you'll  cease  to  cavil. 

That  wild  Ambition  should  lay  waste  the  earth. 
Or  Beauty's  glance  give  civil  discord  birth; 
That,  in  our  courts  of  equity,  a  suit 
Should  hang  in  doubt  till  ruin  is  the  fruit; 
That  an  old  country  priest  should  deeply  groan. 
To  see  a  benefice  he'd  thought  his  own 
Borne  off  by  a  court  abbe;  that  a  poet 
Should  feel  most  envy  when  he  least  should  show  it; 
And,  when  another's  play  the  public  draws. 
Should  grin  damnation  while  he  claps  applause; 
With  this,  and  more,  the  human  heart  is  fraught — 
But  whence  the  rage  to  rule  another's  thought; 
Say,  wherefore — in  what  way — can  you  design 
To  make  j<3?^r  judgment  give  the  law  to  mhie? 

But  chiefly  I  detest  those  tiresome  elves. 
Half-learned  critics,  worshipping  themselves. 
Who,  with  the  utmost  weight  of  all  their  lead. 
Maintain  against  you  what  yourself  have  said; 
Philosophers — and  poets — and  musicians — 
Great  statesmen — deep  in  third  and  fourth  editions — 
They  know  all — read  all— and  (the  greatest  curse) 
They  talk  of  all — from  politics  to  verse; 
On  points  of  taste  they'll  contradict  Voltaire; 
In  law  e'en  Montesquieu  they  will  not  spare; 
They'll  tutor  Broglio  in  affairs  of  arms; 
And  teach  the  charming  d'Egmont  higher  charms. 
See  them,  alike  in  great  and  small  things  clever. 
Replying  constantly,  though  answering  never; 
Hear  them  assert,  repeat,  affirm,  aver. 
Wax  wroth.     And  wherefore  all  this  mighty  stir? 
This  the  great  theme  that  agitates  their  breast — 
Which  of  two  wretched  rhymesters  rhymes  the  best? 

Pray,  gentle  reader,  did  you  chance  to  know 
One  Monsieur  d'Aube,  who  died  not  long  ago? 
One  whom  the  disputatious  mania  woke 
Early  each  morning?     If,  by  chance,  you  spoke 


Dictionary.  131 

Of  your  own  part  in  some  well-fought  affair, 

Better  than  you  he  knew  how,  when,  and  where; 

What  though  your  own  the  deed  and  the  renown? 

His  "  letters  from  the  army"  put  you  down; 

E'en  Richelieu  he'd  have  told— if  he  attended — 

How  Mahon  fell,  or  Genoa  was  defended. 

Although  he  wanted  neither  wit  nor  sense, 

His  every  visit  gave  his  friends  offence; 

I've  seen  him,  raving  in  a  hot  dispute, 

Exliaust  their  logic,  force  them  to  be  mute, 

Or,  if  their  patience  were  entirely  spent, 

Rush  from  the  room  to  give  their  passion  vent. 

His  kinsmen,  whom  his  property  allured. 

At  last  were  wearied,  though  they  long  endured. 

His  neighbors,  less  athletic  than  himself, 

For  health's  sake  laid  him  wholly  on  the  shelf. 

Thus,  'midst  his  many  virtues,  this  one  failing 

Brought  his  old  age  to  solitary  wailing; — 

For  solitude  to  him  was  deepest  woe — 

A  sorrow  which  the  peaceful  ne'er  can  know 

At  length,  to  terminate  his  cureless  grief, 

A  mortal  fever  came  to  his  relief, 

Caused  by  the  great,  the  overwhelming  pang. 

Of  hearing  in  the  church  a  long  harangue 

Without  the  privilege  of  contradiction; 

So,  yielding  to  this  crowning  dire  afifliction. 

His  spirit  ffed.     But,  in  the  grasp  of  death, 

*Twas  some  small  solace,  with  his  parting  breath, 

To  indulge  once  more  his  ruling  disposition 

By  arguing  with  the  priest  and  the  physician. 

Oh!  may  the  Eternal  goodness  grant  him  now 
The  rest  he  ne'er  to  mortals  would  allow! 
If,  even  there,  he  like  not  disputation 
Better  than  uncontested,  calm  salvation. 

But  see,  my  friends,  this  bold  defiance  made 
To  every  one  of  the  disputing  trade. 
With  a  young  bachelor  their  skill  to  try; 
And  God's  own  essence  shall  the  theme  supply. 

Come  and  behold,  as  on  the  theatric  stage. 
The  pitched  encounter,  the  contending  rage; 
Dilemmas,  enthymemes,  in  close  array — 
Two-edged  weapons,  cutting  either  way; 
The  strong-built  syllogism's  pondering  might. 
The  sophism's  vain  ignis  fatuus  light; 
Hot-headed  monks,  whom  all  the  doctors  dread, 
And  poor  Hibernians  arguing  for  their  bread, 


132  Philosophical 


Fleeing  their  country's  miseries  and  morasses 
To  live  at  Paris  on  disputes  and  masses; 
While  the  good  public  lend  their  strict  attention 
To  what  soars  far  above  their  sober  comprehension. 

Is,  then,  all  arguing  frivolous  or  absurd? 
Was  Socrates  himself  not  sometimes  heard 
To  hold  an  argument  amidst  a  feast? 
E'en  naked  in  the  bath  he  hardly  ceased. 
Was  this  a  failing  in  his  mental  vision? 
Genius  is  sure  discovered  by  collision; 
The  cold  hard  flint  by  one  quick  blow  is  fired; — 
Fit  emblem  of  the  close  and  the  retired, 
Who,  in  the  keen  dispute  struck  o'er  and  o'er, 
Acquire  a  sudden  warmth  unfelt  before. 

All  this,  I  grant,  is  good.     But  mark  the  ill: 
Men  by  disputing  have  grown  blinder  still. 
The  crooked  mind  is  like  the  squinting  eye: 
How  can  you  make  it  see  itself  a.-wry'i 
Who's  in  the  wrong?     Will  any  answer  "  I  "? 
Our  words,  our  efforts,  are  an  idle  breath; 
Each  hugs  his  darling  notion  until  death; 
Opinions  ne'er  are  altered;  all  we  do 
Is,  to  arouse  co7iflicti7i_s[  passions,  too. 
Not  truth  itself  should  always  find  a  tongue; 
"To  be  too  stanchly  right,  is  to  be  wrong." 

In  earlier  days,  by  vice  and  crime  unstained, 
Justice  and  Truth,  two  naked  sisters,  reigned; 
But  long  since  fled — as  every  one  can  tell — 
Justice  to  heaven  and  Truth  into  a  well. 

Now  vain  Opinion  governs  every  age, 
And  fills  poor  mortals  with  fantastic  rage. 
Her  airy  temple  floats  upon  the  clouds; 
Gods,  demons,  antic  sprites,  in  countless  crowds, 
Around  her  throne — a  strange  and  motley  mas'k — 
Ply  busily  their  never-ceasing  task, 
To  hold  up  to  mankind's  admiring  gaze 
A  thousand  nothings  in  a  thousand  ways; 
While,  wafted  on  by  all  the  winds  that  blow, 
Away  the  temple  and  the  goddess  go. 
A  mortal,  as  her  course  uncertain  turns, 
To-day  is  worshipped,  and  to-morrow  burns. 
We  scoff,  that  young  Antinous  once  had  priests; 
We  think  our  ancestors  were  worse  than  beasts; 
And  he  who  treats  each  modern  custom  ill, 
Does  but  what  future  ages  surely  will. 
What  female  face  has  Venus  smiled  upon? 
The  Frenchman  turns  with  rapture  to  Brionne, 


Dictionary.  133 


Nor  can  believe  that  men  were  wont  to  bow 

To  golden  tresses  and  a  narrow  brow. 

And  thus  is  vagabond  Opinion  seen 

To  sway  o'er  Beauty — this  world's  other  queen! 

How  can  we  hope,  then,  that  she  e'er  will  quit 
Her  vapory  throne,  to  seek  some  sage's  feet. 
And  Truth  from  her  deep  hiding-place  remove, 
Once  more  to  witness  what  is  done  above? 

And  for  the  learned— even  for  the  wise — 
Another  snare  of  false  delusion  lies; 
That  rage  for  systems,  which,  in  dreamy  thought. 
Frames  magic  universes  out  of  naught; 
Building  ten  errors  on  one  truth's  foundation. 
So  he  who  taught  the  art  of  calculation, 
In  one  of  these  illusive  mental  slumbers, 
Foolishly  sought  the  Deity  in  numbers; 
The  first  mechanic,  from  as  wild  a  notion, 
Would  rule  man's  freedom  by  the  laws  of  motion. 
This  globe,  says  one,  is  an  extinguished  sun; 

No,  says  another,  'tis  a  globe  of  glass; 
And  when  the  fierce  contention's  once  begun, 

Book  upon  book — a  vast  and  useless  mass — 
On  Science's  altar  are  profusely  strewn. 
While  Disputation  sits  on  Wisdom's  throne. 

And  then,  from  contrarieties  of  speech, 
What  countless  feuds  have  sprung!     For  you  may  teach, 
In  the  same  words,  two  doctrines  dififerent  quite 
As  day  from  darkness,  or  as  wrong  from  right. 
This  has  indeed  been  man's  severest  curse; 
Famine  and  pestilence  ha\e  not  been  worse. 
Nor  e'er  have  matched  the  ills  whose  aggravations 
Have  scourged  the  world  through  misinterpretations. 

How  shall  1  paint  the  conscientious  strife? 

The  holy  transports  of  each  heaveniy  soul — 
Fanaticism  wasting  human  life 

With  torch,  with  dagger,  and  with  poisoned  bow; 
The  ruined  hamlet  and  the  blazing  town. 

Homes  desolate,  and  parents  massacred, 

And  temples  in  the  Almighty's  honor  reared 
The  scene  of  acts  that  merit  most  his  frown! 
Rape,  murder,  pillage,  in  one  frightful  storm, 

Pleasure  with  carnage  horribly  combined. 

The  brutal  ravisher  amazed  to  find 
A  sister  in  his  victim's  dying  form! 


134  Philosophical 

Sons  by  their  fathers  to  the  scaffold  led; 
The  vanquished  always  numbered  with  the  dead. 
Oh,  God,  permit  that  all  the  ills  we  know 
May  one  day  pass  for  merely  fabled  woe! 

But  see,  an  angry  disputant  steps  forth — 

His  humble  mien  a  proud  heart  ill  conceals 
In  holy  guise  inclining  to  the  earth. 

Offering  to  God  the  venom  he  distils. 
"  Beneath  all  this  a  dangerous  poison  lies; 

So — every  man  is  neither  right  nor  wrong, 
And,  since  we  never  can  be  truly  wise. 

By  instinct  only  should  be  driven  along." 
"Sir,  I've  not  said  a  word  to  that  effect." 

"  It's  true,  you've  artfully  disguised  your  meaning." 
"But,  Sir,  my  judgment  ever  is  correct." 

"Sir.in  this  case,  'tis  rather  overweening. 
Let  truth  be  sought,  but  let  all  passion  yield; 

'Discussion's  right,  and  disputation's  wrong;' 
This  have  I  said — and  that  at  court,  in  field, 

Or  town,  one  often  should  restrain  one's  tongue." 
"  But,  my  dear  Sir,  you've  still  a  double  sense; 

I  can  distinguish — "     "  Sir,  with  all  my  heart; 
I've  told  my  thoughts  with  all  due  deference, 

And  crave  the  like  indulgence  on  your  part." 
"  My  son,  all  '  thinking '  is  a  grievous  crime; 
So  I'll  denounce  you  without  loss  of  time." 

Blest  would  be  they  who,  from  fanatic  power, 

From  carping  censors,  envious  critics,  free. 

O'er  Helicon  might  roam  in  liberty, 
And  unmolested  pluck  each  fragrant  flower! 
So  does  the  farmer,  in  his  healthy  fields, 

Far  from  the  ills  in  swarming  towns  that  spring, 
Taste  the  pure  joys  that  our  existence  yields, 

Extract  the  honey  and  escape  the  stmg. 

DISTANCE. 

A  MAN  who  knows  how  to  reckon  the  paces  from 
one  end  of  his  house  to  the  other  might  imagine  that 
nature  had  all  at  once  taught  him  this  distance  and 
that  he  has  only  need  of  a  coup  d'ocil,  as  in  the  case 
of  colors.  He  is  deceived  ;  the  different  distances 
of  objects  can  be  known  only  by  experience,  compar- 


Dictionary.  135 

^son,  and  habit.  It  is  that  which  makes  a  sailor,  on 
seeing  a  vessel  afar  off,  able  to  say  without  hesita- 
\ion  what  distance  his  own  vessel  is  from  it,  of 
which  distance  a  passenger  would  only  form  a  very 
confused  idea. 

Distance  is  only  the  line  from  a  given  object  to 
ourselves.  This  line  terminates  at  a  point ;  and 
whether  the  object  be  a  thousand  leagues  from  us 
or  only  a  foot,  this  point  is  always  the  same  to  our 
eyes. 

We  have  then  no  means  of  directly  perceiving 
distances,  as  we  have  of  ascertaining  by  the  touch 
whether  a  body  is  hard  or  soft ;  by  the  taste,  if  it  is 
bitter  or  sweet :  or  by  the  ear,  whether  of  two  sounds 
the  one  is  grave  and  the  other  lively.  For  if  I  duly 
notice,  the  parts  of  a  body  which  give  way  to  my 
fingers  are  the  immediate  cause  of  my  sensation  of 
softness,  and  the  vibrations  of  the  air,  excited  by  the 
sonorous  body,  are  the  immediate  cause  of  my  sen- 
sation of  sound.  But  as  I  cannot  have  an  immediate 
idea  of  distance  I  must  find  it  out  by  means  of  an 
intermediate  idea,  but  it  is  necessary  that  this  inter- 
mediate idea  be  clearly  understood,  for  it  is  only  by 
the  medium  of  things  known  that  we  can  acquire  a 
notion  of  things  unknown. 

I  am  told  that  such  a  house  is  distant  a  mile  from 
such  a  river,  but  if  I  do  not  know  where  this  river 
is  I  certainly  do  not  know  where  the  house  is  situ- 
ated. A  body  yields  easily  to  the  impression  of  my 
hand :    I  conclude  immediately  that  it  is  soft.     An- 


136  Philosophical 

other  resists,  I  feel  at  once  its  hardness.  I  ought 
therefore  to  feel  the  angles  formed  in  my  eye  in 
order  to  determine  the  distance  of  objects.  But 
most  men  do  not  even  know  that  these  angles  exist ; 
it  is  evident,  therefore,  that  they  cannot  be  the  im- 
mediate cause  of  our  ascertaining  distances. 

He  who,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  hears  the 
noise  of  a  cannon  or  the  sound  of  a  concert,  cannot 
judge  whether  the  cannon  be  fired  or  the  concert  be 
performed  at  the  distance  of  a  league  or  of  twenty 
paces.  He  has  only  the  experience  which  accustoms 
him  to  judge  of  the  distance  between  himself  and  the 
place  whence  the  noise  proceeds.  The  vibrations, 
the  undulations  of  the  air  carry  a  sound  to  his  ears, 
or  rather  to  his  sensorium,  but  this  noise  no  more 
carries  to  his  sensorium  the  place  whence  it  pro- 
ceeds than  it  teaches  him  the  form  of  the  cannon  or 
of  the  musical  instruments.  It  is  the  same  thing 
precisely  with  regard  to  the  rays  of  light  which  pro- 
ceed from  an  object,  but  which  do  not  at  all  inform 
us  of  its  situation. 

Neither  do  they  inform  us  more  immediately  of 
magnitude  or  form.  I  see  from  afar  a  little  round 
tower.  I  approach,  perceive,  and  touch  a  great 
quadrangular  building.  Certainly,  this  which  I  now 
see  and  touch  cannot  be  that  which  I  saw  before. 
The  little  round  tower  which  was  before  my  eyes 
cannot  be  this  large,  square  building.  One  thing  in 
relation  to  us  is  the  measurable  and  tangible  object ; 
another,  the  visible  object.    I  hear  from  my  cham- 


Dictionary.  137 

ber  the  noise  of  a  carriage,  I  open  my  window  and 
see  it.  I  descend  and  enter  it.  Yet  this  carriage 
that  I  have  heard,  this  carriage  that  I  have  seen,  and 
this  carriage  which  I  have  touched  are  three  objects 
absolutely  distinct  to  three  of  my  senses,  which  have 
no  immediate  relation  to  one  another. 

Further;  it  is  demonstrated  that  there  is  formed 
in  my  eye  an  angle  a  degree  larger  when  a  thing  is 
near,  when  I  see  a  man  four  feet  from  me  than  when 
I  see  the  same  man  at  a  distance  of  eight  feet.  How- 
ever, I  always  see  this  man  of  the  same  size.  How 
does  my  mind  thus  contradict  the  mechanism  of  my 
organs?  The  object  is  really  a  degree  smaller  to 
my  eyes,  and  yet  I  see  it  the  same.  It  is  in  vain 
that  we  attempt  to  explain  this  mystery  by  the  route 
which  the  rays  follow  or  by  the  form  taken  by  the 
crystalline  humor  of  the  eye.  Whatever  may  be 
supposed  to  the  contrary,  the  angle  at  which  I  see  a 
man  at  four  feet  from  me  is  always  nearly  double  the 
angle  at  which  I  see  him  at  eight  feet.  Neither 
geometry  nor  physics  will  explain  this  difficulty. 

These  geometrical  lines  and  angles  are  not  really 
more  the  cause  of  our  seeing  objects  in  their  proper 
places  than  that  we  see  them  of  a  certain  size  and 
at  a  certain  distance.  The  mind  does  not  consider 
that  if  this  part  were  to  be  painted  at  the  bottom  of 
the  eye  it  could  collect  nothing  from  lines  that  it  saw 
not.  The  eye  looks  down  only  to  see  that  which  is 
near  the  ground,  and  is  uplifted  to  see  that  which 
is  above  the  earth.    All  this  might  be  explained  and 


138  Philosophical 

placed  beyond  dispute  by  any  person  born  blind,  to 
whom  the  sense  of  sight  was  afterwards  attained. 
For  if  this  blind  man,  the  moment  that  he  opens  his 
eyes,  can  correctly  judge  of  distances,  dimensions, 
and  situations,  it  would  be  true  that  the  optical  an- 
gles suddenly  formed  in  his  retina  were  the  imme- 
diate cause  of  his  decisions.  Doctor  Berkeley  as- 
serts, after  Locke — going  even  further  than  Locke — 
that  neither  situation,  magnitude,  distance,  nor  fig- 
ure would  be  discerned  by  a  blind  man  thus  sud- 
denly gifted  with  sight. 

In  fact,  a  man  born  blind  was  found  in  1729, 
by  whom  this  question  was  indubitably  decided.  The 
famous  Cheselden,  one  of  those  celebrated  surgeons 
who  join  manual  skill  to  the  most  enlightened  minds, 
imagined  that  he  could  give  sight  to  this  blind 
man  by  couching,  and  proposed  the  operation.  The 
patient  was  with  great  difficulty  brought  to  consent 
to  it.  He  did  not  conceive  that  the  sense  of  sight 
could  much  augment  his  pleasures,  except  that  he 
desired  to  be  able  to  read  and  to  write,  he  cared  in- 
deed little  about  seeing.  He  proved  by  this  indif- 
ference that  it  is  impossible  to  be  rendered  unhappy 
by  the  privation  of  pleasures  of  which  we  have  never 
formed  an  idea — a  very  important  truth.  However 
this  may  be,  the  operation  was  performed,  and  suc- 
ceeded. This  young  man  at  fourteen  years  of  age 
saw  the  light  for  the  first  time,  and  his  experience 
confirmed  all  that  Locke  and  Berkeley  had  so  ably 
foreseen.     For  a  lone:  time  he  distinsfuished  neither 


Dictionary.  1 39 

dimensions,  distance,  nor  form.  An  object  about  the 
size  of  an  inch,  which  was  placed  before  his  eyes, 
and  which  concealed  a  house  from  him,  appeared  as 
large  as  the  house  itself.  All  that  he  saw  seemed 
to  touch  his  eyes,  and  to  touch  them  as  objects  of 
feeling-  touch  the  skin.  He  could  not  at  first  distin- 
guish that  which,  by  the  aid  of  his  hands,  he  had 
thought  round  from  that  which  he  had  supposed 
square,  nor  could  he  discern  with  his  eyes  if  that 
which  his  hands  had  felt  to  be  tall  and  short  were  so 
in  reality.  He  was  so  far  from  knowing  anything 
about  magnitude  that  after  having  at  last  conceived 
by  his  sight  that  his  house  was  larger  than  his  cham- 
ber, he  could  not  conceive  how  sight  could  give  him 
this  idea.  It  was  not  until  after  two  months'  expe- 
rience he  could  discover  that  pictures  represented 
existing  bodies,  and  when,  after  this  long  develop- 
ment of  his  new  sense  in  him,  he  perceived  that  bod- 
ies, and  not  surfaces  only,  were  painted  in  the  pic- 
tures, he  took  them  in  his  hands  and  w^as  astonished 
at  not  finding  those  solid  bodies  of  which  he  had  be- 
gun to  perceive  the  representation,  and  demanded 
which  was  the  deceived,  the  sense  of  feeling  or  that 
of  sight. 

Thus  was  it  irrevocably  decided  that  the  manner 
in  which  we  see  things  follows  not  immediately 
from  the  angles  formed  in  the  eye.  These  mathe- 
matical angles  were  in  the  eyes  of  this  man  the  same 
as  in  our  own  and  were  of  no  use  to  him  without  the 
help  of  experience  and  of  his  other  senses. 


1 40  Philosophical 

The  adventure  of  the  man  born  bhnd  was  known 
in  France  towards  the  year  1735.  The  author  of  the 
"Elements  of  Newton,"  who  had  seen  a  great  deal 
of  Cheselden,  made  mention  of  this  important  dis- 
covery, but  did  not  take  much  notice  of  it.  And 
even  when  the  same  operation  of  the  cataract  was 
performed  at  Paris  on  a  young  man  who  was  said 
to  have  been  deprived  of  sight  from  his  cradle,  the 
operators  neglected  to  attend  to  the  daily  develop- 
ment of  the  sense  of  sight  in  him  and  to  the  progress 
of  nature.  The  fruit  of  this  operation  was  therefore 
lost  to  philosophy. 

How  do  we  represent  to  ourselves  dimensions 
and  distances  ?  In  the  same  manner  that  we  imagine 
the  passions  of  men  by  the  colors  with  which  they 
vary  their  countenances,  and  by  the  alteration  which 
they  make  in  their  features.  There  is  no  person  who 
cannot  read  joy  or  grief  on  the  countenance  of  an- 
other. It  is  the  language  that  nature  addresses  to 
all  eyes,  but  experience  only  teaches  this  language. 
Experience  alone  teaches  us  that,  when  an  object  is 
too  far,  we  see  it  confusedly  and  weakly,  and  thence 
we  form  ideas,  which  always  afterwards  accom- 
pany the  sensation  of  sight.  Thus  every  man  who 
at  ten  paces  sees  his  horse  five  feet  high,  if,  some 
minutes  after,  he  sees  this  horse  of  the  size  of  a 
sheep,  by  an  involuntary  judgment  immediately  con- 
cludes that  the  horse  is  much  farther  from  him. 

It  is  very  true  that  when  I  see  my  horse  of  the 
size  of  a  sheep  a  much  smaller  picture  is  formed  in 


Dictionary.  141 

my  eye — a  more  acute  angle ;  but  it  is  a  fact  which 
accompanies,  not  causes,  my  opinion.  In  like  man- 
ner, it  makes  a  different  impression  on  my  brain, 
when  I  see  a  man  blush  from  shame  and  from 
anger;  but  these  different  impressions  would  tell 
me  nothing  of  what  was  passing  in  this  man's  mind, 
without  experience,  whose  voice  alone  is  attended  to. 
So  far  from  the  angle  being  the  immediate  cause 
of  my  thinking  that  a  horse  is  far  off  when  I  see 
it  very  small,  it  happens  that  I  see  my  horse  equally 
large  at  ten,  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty  paces,  though 
the  angle  at  ten  paces  may  be  double,  treble,  or 
quadruple.  I  see  at  a  distance,  through  a  small 
hole,  a  man  posted  on  the  top  of  a  house ;  the  re- 
moteness and  fewness  of  the  rays  at  first  prevent 
me  from  distinguishing  that  it  is  a  man;  the  object 
appears  to  me  very  small.  I  think  I  see  a  statue 
two  feet  high  at  most;  the  object  moves;  I  then 
judge  that  it  is  a  man ;  and  from  that  instant  the 
man  appears  to  me  of  his  ordinary  size.  Whence 
come  these  two  judgments  so  different?  When  I 
believed  that  I  saw  a  statue,  I  imagined  it  to  be  two 
feet  high,  because  I  saw  it  at  such  an  angle ;  ex- 
perience had  not  led  my  mind  to  falsify  the  traits 
imprinted  on  my  retina;  but  as  soon  as  I  judged 
that  it  was  a  man,  the  association  established  in  my 
mind  by  experience  between  a  man  and  his  known 
height  of  five  or  six  feet,  involuntarily  obliged  me 
to  imagine  that  I  saw  one  of  a  certain  height ;  or,  in 
fact,  that  I  saw  the  height  itself. 


142  Philosophical 

It  must  therefore  be  absolutely  concluded,  that 
distance,  dimension,  and  situation  are  not,  properly 
speaking,  visible  things ;  that  is  to  say,  the  proper 
and  immediate  objects  of  sight.  The  proper  and 
immediate  object  of  sight  is  nothing  but  colored 
light ;  all  the  rest  we  only  discover  by  long  ac- 
quaintance and  experience.  We  learn  to  see  pre- 
cisely as  we  learn  to  speak  and  to  read.  The  dif- 
ference is,  that  the  art  of  seeing  is  more  easy,  and 
that  nature  is  equally  mistress  o.f  all. 

The  sudden  and  almost  uniform  judgments 
which,  at  a  certain  age,  our  minds  form  of  distance, 
dimension,  and  situation,  make  us  think  that  we 
have  only  to  open  our  eyes  to  see  in  the  manner  in 
which  we  do  see.  We  are  deceived ;  it  requires  the 
help  of  the  other  senses.  If  men  had  only  the  sense 
of  sight,  they  would  have  no  means  of  knowing 
extent  in  length,  breadth,  and  depth,  and  a  pure 
spirit  perhaps  would  not  know  it,  unless  God  re- 
vealed it  to  him.  It  is  very  difficult,  in  our  under- 
standing, to  separate  the  extent  of  an  object  from 
its  color.  We  never  see  anything  but  what  is  ex- 
tended, and  from  that  we  are  led  to  believe  that  we 
really  see  the  extent.  We  can  scarcely  distinguish  in 
our  minds  the  yellow  that  we  see  in  a  louis  d'or 
from  the  loiiis  d'or  in  which  we  see  the  yellow.  In 
the  same  manner,  as  wdien  we  hear  the  word  "louis 
d'or"  pronounced,  we  cannot  help  attaching  the  idea 
of  the  money  to  the  word  which  we  hear  spoken. 


Dictionary.  143 

If  all  men  spoke  the  same  language,  we  should 
be  always  ready  to  believe  in  a  necessary  connection 
between  words  and  ideas.  But  all  men  in  fact  do 
possess  the  same  language  of  imagination.  Nature 
says  to  them  all :  When  you  have  seen  colors  for 
a  certain  time,  imagination  will  represent  the  bodies 
to  which  these  colors  appear  attached  to  all  alike. 
This  prompt  and  summary  judgment  once  attained 
will  be  of  use  to  you  during  your  life ;  for  if  to  es- 
timate the  distances,  magnitudes,  and  situations  of 
all  that  surrounds  you,  it  were  necessary  to  examine 
the  visual  angles  and  rays,  you  would  be  dead  be- 
fore you  had  ascertained  whether  the  things  of 
which  you  have  need  were  ten  paces  from  you  or  a 
hundred  thousand  leagues,  and  whether  they  were 
of  a  size  of  a  worm  or  of  a  mountain.  It  would  be 
better  to  be  born  blind. 

We  are  then,  perhaps,  very  wrong,  when  we  say 
that  our  senses  deceive  us.  Every  one  of  our 
senses  performs  the  function  for  which  it  was  des- 
tined by  nature.  They  mutually  aid  one  another  to 
convey  to  our  minds,  through  the  medium  of  ex- 
perience, the  measure  of  knowledge  that  our  being 
allows.  We  ask  from  our  senses  what  they  are  not 
made  to  give  us.  W^e  would  have  our  eyes  acquaint 
us  with  solidity,  dimension,  distance,  etc. ;  but  it  is 
necessary  for  the  touch  to  agree  for  that  purpose 
with  the  sight,  and  that  experience  should  second 
both.     If  Father  Malebranche  had  looked  at  this 


144  Philosophical 

side  of  nature,  he  would  perhaps  have  attributed 
fewer  errors  to  our  senses,  which  are  the  only 
sources  of  all  our  ideas. 

We  should  not,  however,  extend  this  species  of 
metaphysics  to  every  case  before  us.  We  should 
only  call  it  to  our  aid  when  the  mathematics  are  in- 
sufficient. 

DIVINITY  OF  JESUS. 

The  Socinians,  who  are  regarded  as  blasphemers, 
do  not  recognize  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  They 
dare  to  pretend,  with  the  philosophers  of  antiquity, 
with  the  Jews,  the  Mahometans,  and  most  other 
nations,  that  the  idea  of  a  god-man  is  monstrous ; 
that  the  distance  from  God  to  man  is  infinite ;  and 
that  it  is  impossible  for  a  perishable  body  to  be  in- 
finite, immense,  or  eternal. 

They  have  the  confidence  to  quote  Eusebius, 
bishop  of  Caesarea,  in  their  favor,  who,  in  his  "Ec- 
clesiastical History,"  i.,  9,  declares  that  it  is  ab- 
surd to  imagine  the  uncreated  and  unchangeable 
nature  of  Almighty  God  taking  the  form  of  a  man. 
They  cite  the  fathers  of  the  Church,  Justin  and  Ter- 
tullian,  who  have  said  the  same  thing:  Justin,  in 
his  "Dialogue  with  Triphonius";  and  Tertullian,  in 
his  "Discourse  against  Praxeas." 

They  quote  St.  Paul,  who  never  calls  Jesus  Christ 
"God,"  and  who  calls  Plim  "man"  very  often.  They 
carry  their  audacity  so  far  as  to  affirm  that  the 
Christians  passed  three  entire  ages  in  forming  by 


Dictionary.  145 

degrees  the  apotheosis  of  Jesus ;  and  that  they  only 
raised  this  astonishing  edifice  by  the  example  of  the 
pagans,  who  had  deified  mortals.  At  first,  accord- 
ing to  them,  Jesus  was  only  regarded  as  a  man  m- 
spired  by  God,  and  then  as  a  creature  more  perfect 
than  others.  They  gave  Him  some  time  after  a 
place  above  the  angels,  as  St.  Paul  tells  us.  Every 
day  added  to  His  greatness.  He  in  time  became  an 
emanation,  proceeding  from  God.  This  was  not 
enough ;  He  was  even  born  before  time.  At  last 
He  was  made  God  consubstantial  with  God.  Crel- 
lius,  Voquelsius.  Natalis  Alexander,  and  Horneck 
have  supported  all  these  blasphemies  by  arguments 
which  astonish  the  wise  and  mislead  the  weak. 
Above  all,  Faustus  Socinus  spread  the  seeds  of  this 
doctrine  in  Europe ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century  a  new  species  of  Christianity  was  estab- 
lished. There  were  already  more  than  three  hun- 
dred. 

DIVORCE. 

In  the  article  on  "Divorce,"  in  the  "Encyclo- 
paedia," it  is  said  that  the  custom  of  divorce  having 
been  brought  into  Gaul  by  the  Romans,  it  was  there- 
fore that  Basine,  or  Bazine,  quitted  the  king  of 
Thuringia,  her  husband,  in  order  to  follow  Chil- 
deric.  who  married  her.  Why  not  say  that  because 
the  Trojans  established  the  custom  of  divorce  in 
Sparta,  Helen  repudiated  Menelaus  according  to 
law,  to  run  away  with  Paris  into  Phrygia? 

Vol.  8—10 


146  Philosophical 

The  agreeable  fable  of  Paris,  and  the  ridiculous 
one  of  Childeric,  who  never  was  king  of  France, 
and  who  it  is  pretended  carried  off  Bazine,  the  wife 
of  Bazin,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  law  of  divorce. 

They  all  quote  Cheribert,  ruler  of  the  httle  town 
of  Lutetia,  near  Issay — Lutetia  Parisiorum — who 
repudiated  his  wife.  The  Abbe  Velly,  in  his  "His- 
tory of  France,"  says  that  this  Cheribert,  or  Cari- 
bert,  divorced  his  wife  Ingoberg  to  espouse  Mire- 
fleur,  the  daughter  of  an  artisan;  and  afterwards 
Theudegild.  the  daughter  of  a  shepherd,  who  was 
raised  to  the  first  throne  of  the  French  Empire. 

There  was  at  that  time  neither  first  nor  second 
throne  among  these  barbarians  whom  the  Roman 
Empire  never  recognized  as  kings.  There  was  no 
French  Empire.  The  empire  of  the  French  only 
commenced  with  Charlemagne.  It  is  very  doubtful 
whether  the  word  "mirefleur"  was  in  use  either  in 
the  Welsh  or  Gallic  languages,  which  were  a  patois 
of  the  Celtic  jargon.  This  patois  had  no  expres- 
sions so  soft. 

It  is  also  said  that  the  ruler  or  governor  Chil- 
peric,  lord  of  the  province  of  Soissonnais,  whom 
they  call  king  of  France,  divorced  his  queen  Ando- 
vere,  or  A.ndove ;  and  here  follows  the  reason  of 
this  divorce. 

This  Andovere,  after  having  given  three  male 
children  to  the  lord  of  Soissons,  brought  forth  a 
daughter.  The  Franks  having  been  in  some  man- 
ner Christians  since  the  time  of  Clovis,  Andovere, 


Dictionary.  147 

after  her  recovery,  presented  her  daughter  to  be 
baptized.  Chilperic  of  Soissons,  who  was  apparently 
very  tired  of  her,  declared  that  it  was  an  unpardon- 
able crime  in  her  to  be  the  godmother  of  her  infant, 
and  that  she  could  no  longer  be  his  wife  by  the  laws 
of  the  Church.  He  therefore  married  Fredegond, 
whom  he  subsequently  put  away  also,  and  espoused 
a  Visigoth.  To  conclude,  this  scrupulous  husband 
ended  by  taking  Fredegond  back  again. 

There  was  nothing  legal  in  all  this,  and  it  ought 
no  more  to  be  quoted  than  anything  which  passed 
in  Ireland  or  the  Orcades.  The  Justinian  code, 
which  we  have  adopted  in  several  points,  authorizes 
divorce;  but  the  canonical  law,  which  the  Catholics 
have  placed  before  it,  does  not  permit  it. 

The  author  of  the  article  says  tliat  divorce  is 
practised  in  the  states  of  Germany,  of  the  confes- 
sion of  Augsburg.  He  might  have  added  that  this 
custom  is  established  in  all  the  countries  of  the 
North,  among  the  reformed  of  all  professions,  and 
among  all  the  followers  of  the  Greek  Church. 

Divorce  is  probably  of  nearly  the  same  date  as 
marriage.  I  believe,  however,  that  marriage  is  some 
weeks  more  ancient ;  that  is  to  say,  men  quarrelled 
with  their  wives  at  the  end  of  five  days,  beat  them 
at  the  end  of  a  month,  and  separated  from  them 
after  six  weeks'  cohabitation. 

Justinian,  who  collected  all  the  laws  made  before 
him,  to  which  he  added  his  own,  not  only  confirms 
that  of  divorce,  but  he  extends  it  still  further;    so 


148  Philosophical 

that  every  woman,  whose  husband  is  not  a  slave, 
but  simply  a  prisoner  of  war  during  five  years,  may, 
after  the  five  years  have  expired,  contract  another 
marriage. 

Justinian  was  a  Christian,  and  even  a  theologian ; 
how  is  it,  then,  that  the  Church  derogates  from  his 
laws  ?  It  was  when  the  Church  became  the  sovereign 
and  the  legislator.  The  popes  had  not  much  trouble 
to  substitute  their  decretals  instead  of  the  civil  code 
in  the  West,  which  was  plunged  in  ignorance  and 
barbarism.  They  took,  indeed,  so  much  advantage 
of  the  prevailing  ignorance,  that  Honorius  III., 
Gregory  IX.,  and  Innocent  III.,  by  their  bulls,  for- 
bade the  civil  law  to  be  taught.  It  may  be  said  of 
this  audacity,  that  it  is  not  creditable,  but  true. 

As  the  Church  alone  took  cognizance  of  mar- 
riages, so  it  alone  judged  of  divorce.  No  prince 
effected  a  divorce  and  married  a  second  wife  with- 
out previously  obtaining  the  consent  of  the  pope. 
Henry  VI II.,  king  of  England,  did  not  marry  with- 
out his  consent,  until  after  having  a  long  time  solic- 
ited his  divorce  in  the  court  of  Rome  in  vain. 

This  custom,  established  in  ignorant  times,  is 
perpetuated  in  enlightened  ones  only  because  it 
exists.  All  abuse  eternizes  itself;  it  is  an  Augean 
stable,  and  requires  a  Hercules  to  cleanse  it. 

Henry  IV.  could  not  be  the  father  of  a  king  of 
France  without  the  permission  of  the  pope;  which 
must  have  been  given,  as  has  already  been  remarked, 
not  by  pronouncing  a  divorce,  but  a  lie;   that  is  to 


Dictionary.  149 

say,  by  pretending  that  there  had  not  been  previous 
marriage  with  Margaret  de  Valois. 

DOG. 

It  seems  as  if  nature  had  given  the  dog  to  man 
for  his  defence  and  pleasure ;  it  is  of  all  animals  the 
most  faithful ;   it  is  the  best  possible  friend  of  man. 

It  appears  that  there  are  several  species  absolutely 
different.  How  can  we  believe  that  a  greyhound 
comes  originally  from  a  spaniel?  It  has  neither  its 
hair,  legs,  shape,  ears,  voice,  scent,  nor  instinct.  A 
man  who  has  never  seen  any  dogs  but  barbets  or 
spaniels,  and  who  saw  a  greyhound  for  the  first 
time,  would  take  it  rather  for  a  dwarf  horse  than 
for  an  animal  of  the  spaniel  race.  It  is  very  likely 
that  each  race  was  always  what  it  now  is,  with  the 
exception  of  the  mixture  of  a  small  number  of  them. 
•  It  is  astonishing  that,  in  the  Jewish  law,  the  dog 
was  considered  unclean,  as  well  as  the  griffin,  the 
hare,  the  pig,  and  the  eel ;  there  must  have  been 
some  moral  or  physical  reason  for  it,  which  we  have 
not  yet  discovered. 

That  which  is  related  of  the  sagacity,  obedience, 
friendship,  and  courage  of  dogs,  is  as  extraordinary 
as  true.  The  military  philosopher,  Ulloa,  assures 
us  that  in  Peru  the  Spanish  dogs  recognize  the  men 
of  the  Indian  race,  pursue  them,  and  tear  them  to 
pieces ;  and  that  the  Peruvian  dogs  do  the  same 
with  the  Spaniards.  This  would  seem  to  prove  that 
each  species  of  dogs  still  retained  the  hatred  which 


150  Philosophical 

was  inspired  in  it  at  the  time  of  the  discovery,  and 
that  each  race  always  fought  for  its  master  with  the 
same  valor  and  attachment. 

Why,  then,  has  the  word  "dog"  become  an  in- 
jurious term?  We  say,  for  tenderness,  my  sparrow, 
my  dove,  my  chicken ;  we  even  say  my  kitten, 
though  this  animal  is  famed  for  treachery ;  and, 
when  we  are  angry,  we  call  people  dogs !  The 
Turks,  when  not  even  angry,  speak  with  horror  and 
contempt  of  the  Christian  dogs.  The  English  pop- 
ulace, when  they  see  a  man  who,  by  his  manner  or 
dress,  has  the  appearance  of  having  been  born  on 
the  banks  of  the  Seine  or  of  the  Loire,  commonly 
call  him  a  French  dog — a  figure  of  rhetoric  which 
is  neither  just  to  the  dog  nor  polite  to  the  man. 

The  delicate  Homer  introduces  the  divine 
Achilles  telling  the  divine  Agamemnon  that  he  is  as 
impudent  as  a  dog — a  classical  justification  of  the 
English  populace. 

The  most  zealous  friends  of  the  dog  must,  how- 
ever, confess  that  this  animal  carries  audacity  in  its 
eyes;  that  some  are  morose;  that  they  often  bite 
strangers  whom  they  take  for  their  master's  ene- 
mies, as  sentinels  assail  passengers  who  approach 
too  near  the  counterscarp.  These  are  probably  the 
reasons  which  have  rendered  the  epithet  ''dog"  in- 
sulting; but  we  dare  not  decide. 

Why  was  the  dog  adored  and  revered — as  has 
been   seen — by  the   Egyptians?     Because   the  dog 


Dictionary.  151 

protects  man.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  after  Cambyses 
had  killed  their  bull  Apis,  and  had  had  it  roasted, 
no  animal  except  the  dog  dared  to  eat  the  remains 
of  the  feast,  so  profound  was  the  respect  for  Apis ; 
the  dog,  not  so  scrupulous,  swallowed  the  god  with- 
out hesitation.  The  Egyptians,  as  may  be  imagined, 
were  exceedingly  scandalized  at  this  want  of  rever- 
ence, and  Anubis  lost  much  of  his  credit. 

The  dog,  however,  still  bears  the  honor  of  being 
always  in  the  heavens,  under  the  names  of  the  great 
and  little  dog.     We  regularly  record  the  dog-days. 

But  of  all  dogs,  Cerberus  has  had  the  greatest 
reputation ;  he  had  three  heads.  We  have  remarked 
that,  anciently,  all  went  by  threes — Isis,  Osiris,  and 
Orus,  the  three  first  Egj'ptian  divinities ;  the  three 
brother  gods  of  the  Greek  world — Jupiter,  Nep- 
tune, and  Pluto ;  the  three  Fates,  the  three  Furies, 
the  three  Graces,  the  three  judges  of  hell,  and  the 
three  heads  of  this  infernal  dog. 

We  perceive  here  with  grief  that  we  have 
omitted  the  article  on  "Cats" ;  but  we  console  our- 
selves by  referring  to  their  history.  We  will  only 
remark  that  there  are  no  cats  in  the  heavens,  as  there 
are  goats,  crabs,  bulls,  rams,  eagles,  lions,  fishes, 
hares,  and  dogs ;  but,  in  recompense,  the  cat  has 
been  consecrated,  or  revered,  or  adored,  as  partak- 
ing of  divinity  or  saintship  in  several  towns,  and  as 
altogether  divine  by  no  small  number  of  women. 


152  Philosophical 

DOGMAS. 

We  know  that  all  belief  taught  by  the  Church  is 
a  dogma  which  we  must  embrace.  It  is  a  pity  that 
there  are  dogmas  received  by  the  Latin  Church,  and 
rejected  by  the  Greek.  But  if  unanimity  is  wanting, 
charity  replaces  it.  It  is,  above  all,  between  hearts 
that  union  is  required.  I  think  that  we  can  relate  a 
dream  to  the  purpose,  which  has  already  found  favor 
in  the  estimation  of  many  peaceably  disposed  per- 
sons. 

"On  Feb.  18,  1763,  of  the  vulgar  era,  the  sun 
entering  the  sign  of  the  fishes,  I  was  transported  to 
heaven,  as  all  my  friends  can  bear  witness.  The 
mare  Borac,  of  Mahomet,  was  not  my  steed,  neither 
was  the  fiery  chariot  of  Elijah  my  carriage.  I  was 
not  carried  on  the  elephant  of  Somonocodom,  the 
Siamese ;  on  the  horse  of  St.  George,  the  patron  of 
England ;  nor  on  St.  Anthony's  pig.  I  avow  with 
frankness  that  my  journey  was  made  I  know  not 
how. 

"It  will  be  easily  believed  that  I  was  dazzled ; 
but  it  will  not  so  easily  be  credited  that  I  witnessed 
the  judgment  of  the  dead.  And  who  were  the 
judges?  They  were — do  not  be  displeased  at  it — all 
those  who  have  done  good  to  man.  Confucius, 
Solon,  Socrates,  Titus,  Antoninus,  Epictetus,  Char- 
ron,  de  Thou,  Chancellor  de  L'  Hopital,  and  all  the 
great  men  who,  having  taught  and  practised  the  vir- 
tues that  God  requires,  seemed  to  be  the  only  per- 


Dictionary.  1 53 

«ons  possessing  the  right  of  pronouncing  his  de- 
tTees. 

"I  shall  not  describe  on  what  thrones  they  were 
seated,  nor  how  many  celestial  beings  were  pros- 
trated before  the  eternal  architect  of  all  worlds,  nor 
what  a  crowd  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  innumer- 
able worlds  appeared  before  the  judges.  I  shall  not 
even  give  an  account  of  several  little  interesting 
peculiarities  which  were  exceedingly  striking. 

"I  remarked  that  every  spirit  who  pleaded  his 
cause  and  displayed  his  specious  pretensions  had 
beside  him  all  the  witnesses  of  his  actions.  For  ex- 
ample, when  Cardinal  Lorraine  boasted  of  having 
caused  some  of  his  opinions  to  be  adopted  by  the 
Council  of  Trent,  and  demanded  eternal  life  as  the 
price  of  his  orthodoxy,  there  immediately  appeared 
around  him  twenty  ladies  of  the  court,  all  bearing 
on  their  foreheads  the  number  of  their  interviews 
with  the  cardinal.  I  also  saw  those  who  had  con- 
certed with  him  the  foundations  of  the  infamous 
league.  All  the  accomplices  of  his  wicked  designs 
surrounded  him. 

"Over  against  Cardinal  Lorraine  was  John  Calvin, 
who  boasted,  in  his  gross  patois,  of  having  trampled 
upon  the  papal  idol,  after  others  had  overthrown  it. 
*I  have  written  against  painting  and  sculpture,'  said 
he  ;  'I  have  made  it  apparent  that  good  works  are  of 
no  avail,  and  I  have  proved  that  it  is  diabolical  to 
dance  a  minuet.  Send  away  Cardinal  Lorraine 
quickly,  and  place  me  by  the  side  of  St.  Paul.* 


154  Philosophical 

"As  he  spoke  there  appeared  by  his  side  a  lighted 
pile ;  a  dreadful  spectre,  wearing  round  his  neck 
a  Spanish  frill,  arose  half  burned  from  the  midst  of 
the  flames,  with  dreadful  shrieks.  'Monster,'  cried 
he;  'execrable  monster,  tremble!  recognize  that 
Servetus,  whom  you  caused  to  perish  by  the  most 
cruel  torments,  because  he  had  disputed  with  you 
on  the  manner  in  which  three  persons  can  form  one 
substance.'  Then  all  the  judges  commanded  that 
Cardinal  Lorraine  should  be  thrown  into  the  abyss, 
but  that  Calvin  should  be  punished  still  more  rig- 
orously. 

''I  saw  a  prodigious  crowd  of  spirits,  each  of 
which  said,  'I  have  believed,  I  have  believed!' 
but  on  their  forehead  it  was  written,  'I  have  acted,' 
and  they  were  condemned. 

"The  Jesuit  Letellier  appeared  boldly  with  the 
bull  Unigenitus  in  his  hand.  But  there  suddenly 
arose  at  his  side  a  heap,  consisting  of  two  thousand 
lettres-de-cachct.  A  Jansenist  set  fire  to  them,  and 
Letellier  was  burned  to  a  cinder ;  while  the  Jan- 
senist, who  had  no  less  caballed  than  the  Jesuit,  had 
his  share  of  the  flames. 

"I  saw  approach,  from  right  and  left,  troops  of 
fakirs,  talapoins,  bonzes,  and  black,  white,  and  gray 
monks,  who  all  imagined  that,  to  make  their  court 
to  the  Supreme  Being,  they  must  either  sing, 
scourge  themselves,  or  walk  quite  naked.  'What 
good  have  you  done  to  men?'  was  the  query.  A 
dead  silence  succeeded  to  this  question.     No  om~ 


Dictionary.  155 

dared  to  answer ;  and  they  were  all  conducted  to 
the  mad-houses  of  the  universe,  the  largest  buildings 
imaginable. 

"One  cried  out  that  he  believed  in  the  meta- 
morphoses of  Xaca,  another  in  those  of  Somonoco- 
dom.  'Bacchus  stopped  the  sun  and  moon!'  said 
this  one.  'The  gods  resuscitated  Pelops !'  said  the 
other.  'Here  is  the  bull  in  cocna  Domini!'  said  a 
newcomer — and  the  officer  of  the  court  exclaimed, 
'To  Bedlam,  to  Bedlam !' 

"When  all  these  causes  were  gone  through,  I 
heard  this  proclamation:  'By  the  Eternal  Creator, 
Preserver.  Rewarder,  Revenger,  Forgiver,  etc.,  be 
it  known  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  hundred  thou- 
sand millions  of  millions  of  worlds  that  it  hath 
pleased  us  to  form,  that  we  never  judge  any  sinners 
in  reference  to  their  own  shallow  ideas,  but  only 
as  to  their  actions.     Such  is  our  Justice.' 

"I  own  that  this  w^as  the  first  time  I  ever  heard 
such  an  edict ;  all  those  which  I  had  read,  on  the 
little  grain  of  dust  on  which  I  was  born,  ended  with 
these  words:   'Such  is  our  pleasure.'  " 

DONATIONS. 

The  Roman  Republic,  which  seized  so  many 
states,  also  gave  some  away.  Scipio  made  Mas- 
sinissa  king  of  Numidia. 

Lucullus,  Sulla,  and  Pompey,  each  gave  away 
half  a  dozen  kingdoms.     Cleopatra  received  Egypt 


156  Philosophical 

from  Caesar.  Antony,  and  afterwards  Octavius, 
gave  the  little  kingdom  of  Judaea  to  Herod. 

Under  Trajan,  the  famous  medal  of  regna  as- 
signata  was  struck  and  kingdoms  bestowed. 

Cities  and  provinces  given  in  sovereignty  to 
priests  and  to  colleges,  for  the  greater  glory  of  God, 
or  of  the  gods,  are  seen  in  every  country.  Mahomet, 
and  the  caliphs,  his  vicars,  took  possession  of  many 
states  in  the  propagation  of  their  faith,  but  they  did 
not  make  donations  of  them.  They  held  by  nothing 
but  their  Koran  and  their  sabre. 

The  Christian  religion,  which  was  at  first  a 
society  of  poor  people,  existed  for  a  long  time  on 
alms  alone.  The  first  donation  was  that  of  Ananias 
and  Sapphira  his  wife.  It  was  in  ready  money  and 
was  not  prosperous  to  the  donors. 

The  Donation  of  Constanfine. 

The  celebrated  donation  of  Rome  and  all  Italy  to 
Pope  Sylvester  by  the  emperor  Constantine,  was 
maintained  as  a  part  of  the  creed  of  Rome  until  the 
sixteenth  century.  It  was  believed  that  Constantine, 
being  at  Nicomedia,  was  cured  of  leprosy  at  Rome 
by  the  baptism  which  he  received  from  Bishop  Syl- 
vester, though  he  was  not  baptized  at  all ;  and  that 
by  way  of  recompense  he  gave  forthwith  the  city 
of  Rome  and  all  its  western  provinces  to  this  Syl- 
vester. If  the  deed  of  this  donation  had  been  drawn 
up  by  the  doctor  of  the  Italian  comedy,  it  could  not 
have  been  more  pleasantly  conceived.     It  is  added 


Dictionary.  1 57 

that  Constantine  declared  all  the  canons  of  Rome 
consuls  and  patricians — "patricios  et  consules  efUci" 
— that  he  himself  held  the  bridle  of  the  mare  on 
which  the  new  bishop  was  mounted — "tenentes  fre- 
niun  eqiii  illiiis." 

It  is  astonishing  to  reflect  that  this  fine  story  was 
held  an  article  of  faith  and  respected  by  the  rest  of 
Europe  for  eight  centuries,  and  that  the  Church  per- 
secuted as  heretics  all  those  who  doubted  it. 

Donation  of  Pepin. 

At  present  people  are  no  longer  persecuted  for 
doubting  that  Pepin  the  usurper  gave,  or  was  able 
to  give,  the  exarchate  of  Ravenna  to  the  pope.  It 
is  at  most  an  evil  thought,  a  venial  sin,  which  does 
not  endanger  the  loss  of  body  or  of  soul. 

The  reasoning  of  the  German  lawyers,  who  have 
scruples  in  regard  to  this  donation,  is  as  follows : 

1.  The  librarian  Anastatius,  whose  evidence  is 
always  cited,  wrote  one  hundred  and  forty  years 
after  the  event. 

2.  It  is  not  likely  that  Pepin,  who  was  not  firmly 
established  in  France,  and  against  whom  Aquitaine 
made  war,  could  give  away,  in  Italy,  states  which 
already  belonged  to  the  emperor,  resident  at  Con- 
stantinople. 

3.  Pope  Zacharias  recognized  the  Roman-Greek 
emperor  as  the  sovereign  of  those  lands,  disputed 
by  the  Lx)mbards,  and  had  administered  the  oath  to 
him;   as  may  be  seen  by  the  letters  of  this  bishop, 


158  Philosophical 

Zacharias  of  Rome  to  Bishop  Boniface  of  Mentz. 
Pepin  could  not  give  to  the  pope  the  imperial  ter- 
ritories, 

4.  When  Pope  Stephen  II.  produced  a  letter 
from  heaven,  written  in  the  hand  of  St.  Peter,  to 
Pepin,  to  complain  of  the  grievances  of  the  king  of 
the  Lombards,  Astolphus,  St.  Peter  does  not  men- 
tion in  his  letter  that  Pepin  had  made  a  present  of  the 
exarchate  of  Ravenna  to  the  pope ;  and  certainly  St. 
Peter  would  not  have  failed  to  do  so,  even  if  the 
thing  had  been  only  equivocal ;  he  understands  his 
interest  too  well. 

Finally,  the  deed  of  this  donation  has  never 
been  produced ;  and  what  is  still  stronger,  the  fab- 
rication of  a  false  one  cannot  be  ventured.  The  only 
proofs  are  vague  recitals,  mixed  up  with  fables. 
Instead  of  certainty,  there  are  only  the  absurd  writ- 
ings of  monks,  copied  from  age  to  age,  from  one 
another. 

The  Italian  advocate  who  wrote  in  1722  to  prove 
that  Parma  and  Placentia  had  been  ceded  to  the 
holy  see  as  a  dependency  of  the  exarchate,  asserts 
that  the  Greek  emperors  were  justly  despoiled  of 
their  rights  because  they  had  excited  the  people 
against  God.  Can  lawyers  write  thus  in  our  days? 
Yes,  it  appears,  but  only  at  Rome.  Cardinal  Bellar- 
mine  goes  still  farther.  "The  first  Christians,"  says 
he,  "supported  the  emperors  only  because  they  were 
not  the  strongest."  The  avowal  is  frank,  and  I  am 
persuaded  that  Bellarmine  is  right. 


Dictionary.  159 

The  Donation  of  Charlemagne. 

At  a  time  when  the  court  of  Rome  beHeved  itself 
deficient  in  titles,  it  pretended  that  Charlemagne  had 
confirmed  the  donation  of  the  exarchate,  and  that  he 
added  to  it  Sicily,  Venice,  Benevento,  Corsica,  and 
Sardinia.  But  as  Charlemagne  did  not  possess  any 
of  these  states,  he  could  not  give  them  away ;  and  as 
to  the  town  of  Ravenna,  it  is  very  clear  that  he  kept 
it,  since  in  his  will  he  made  a  legacy  to  his  city  of 
Ravenna  as  well  as  to  his  city  of  Rome.  It  is  sur- 
prising enough  that  the  popes  have  obtained  Ra- 
venna and  Rome ;  but  as  to  Venice,  it  is  not  likely 
that  the  diploma  which  granted  them  the  sover- 
eignty will  be  found  in  the  palace  of  St.  Mark. 

All  these  acts,  instruments,  and  diplomas  have 
been  subjects  of  dispute  for  ages.  But  it  is  a  con- 
firmed opinion,  says  Giannone,  that  martyr  to  truth, 
that  all  these  pieces  were  forged  in  the  time  of 
Gregory  VII.  "£  costante  opinione  presso  i  pin 
gravi  scrittori  die  tutti  qiiesti  istromenti  e  diplomi 
furono  supposti  ne  tempi  d'lldebrando." 

Donation  of  Benevento  by  the  Emperor  Henry  III. 

The  first  well  attested  donation  which  was  made 
to  the  see  of  Rome  was  that  of  Benevento,  and  that 
was  an  exchange  of  the  Emperor  Henry  III.  with 
the  pope.  It  wanted  only  one  formality,  which  was 
that  the  emperor  who  gave  away  Benevento  was  not 
the  owner  of  it.  It  belonged  to  the  dukes  of  Bene- 
vento,  and   the  Roman-Greek   emperors   reclaimtxl 


i6o  Philosophical 

their  rights  on  this  duchy.  But  history  supplies 
little  beyond  a  list  of  those  who  have  accommodated 
themselves  with  the  property  of  others. 

Donation  of  the  Countess  Mathilda. 

The  most  authentic  and  considerable  of  these 
donations  was  that  of  all  the  possessions  of  the 
famous  Countess  Mathilda  to  Gregory  VII.  She  was 
a  young  widow,  who  gave  all  to  her  spiritual 
director.  It  is  supposed  that  the  deed  was  twice 
executed  and  afterwards  confirmed  by  her  will. 

However,  there  still  remains  some  difficulty.  It 
was  always  believed  at  Rome  that  Mathilda  had  given 
all  her  states,  all  her  possessions,  present  and  to 
come, 'to  her  friend  Gregory  VII.  by  a  solemn  deed, 
in  her  castle  of  Canossa,  in  1077,  for  the  relief  of  her 
own  soul  and  that  of  her  parents.  And  to  cor- 
roborate this  precious  instrument  a  second  is  shown 
to  us,  dated  in  the  year  1102,  in  which  it  is  said  that 
it  is  to  Rome  that  she  made  this  donation ;  that  she 
recalled  it,  and  that  she  afterwards  renewed  it ;  and 
always  for  the  good  of  her  soul. 

How  could  so  important  a  deed  be  recalled  ?  Was 
the  court  of  Rome  so  negligent?  How  could  an  in- 
strument written  at  Canossa  have  been  written  at 
Rome?  What  do  these  contradictions  mean?  All 
that  is  clear  is  that  the  souls  of  the  receivers  fared 
better  than  the  soul  of  the  giver,  who  to  save  it  was 
obliged  to  deprive  herself  of  all  she  possessed  in 
favor  of  her  physicians. 


Dictionary.  i6i 

In  short,  in  1 102,  a  sovereign  was  deprived  of  the 
power  of  disposing  of  an  acre  of  land  ;  yet  after  this 
deed,  and  to  the  time  of  her  death,  in  11 15,  there 
are  still  found  considerable  donations  of  lands  made 
by  this  same  Mathilda  to  canons  and  monks.  She 
had  not,  therefore,  given  all.  Finally,  this  deed  was 
very  likely  made  by  some  ingenious  person  after  her 
death. 

The  court  of  Rome  still  includes  among  its  titles 
the  testament  of  Mathilda,  which  confirmed  her  dona- 
tions. The  popes,  however,  never  produce  this  tes- 
tament. It  should  also  be  known  whether  this  rich 
countess  had  the  power  to  dispose  of  her  posses- 
sions, which  were  most  of  them  fiefs  of  the  empire. 

The  Emperor  Henry  V.,  her  heir,  possessed  him- 
self of  all,  and  recognized  neither  testament,  dona- 
tion, deed,  nor  right.  The  popes,  in  temporizing, 
gained  more  than  the  emperors  in  exerting  their 
authority ;  and  in  time  these  Caesars  became  so  weak 
that  the  popes  finally  obtained  the  succession  of 
Mathilda,  which  is  now  called  the  patrimony  of  St. 
Peter. 

Donation  of  the  Sovereignty  of  Naples  to  the  Popes. 

The  Norman  gentlemen  who  were  the  first  in- 
struments of  the  conquests  of  Naples  and  Sicily 
achieved  the  finest  exploit  of  chivalry  that  was  ever 
heard  of.  From  forty  to  fifty  men  only  delivered 
Salerno  at  the  moment  it  was  taken  by  an  army  of 

Saracens.      Seven    other    Norman    gentlemen,    all 
Vol.  8— II 


1 62  Philosophical 

brothers,  sufficed  to  chase  these  same  Saracens  from 
all  the  country,  and  to  take  prisoner  the  Greek  em- 
peror, who  had  treated  them  ungratefully.  It  was 
quite  natural  that  the  people,  whom  these  heroes 
had  inspired  with  valor,  should  be  led  to  obey  them 
through  admiration  and  gratitude. 

Such  were  the  first  rights  to  the  crown  of  the  two 
Sicilies.  The  bishops  of  Rome  could  no  more  give 
those  states  in  fief  than  the  kingdoms  of  Boutan  or 
Cachemire.  They  could  not  even  grant  the  investi- 
ture which  would  have  been  demanded  of  them ; 
for,  in  the  time  of  the  anarchy  of  the  fiefs,  when  a 
lord  would  hold  his  free  land  as  a  fief  for  his  pro- 
tection, he  could  only  address  himself  to  the  sov- 
ereign or  the  chief  of  the  country  in  which  it  was 
situated.  And  certainly  the  pope  was  neither  the 
sovereign  of  Naples,  Apulia,  nor  Calabria. 

Much  has  been  written  about  this  pretended  vas- 
salage, but  the  source  has  never  been  discovered. 
I  dare  say  that  it  is  as  much  the  fault  of  the  lawyers 
as  of  the  theologians.  Every  one  deduces  from  a  re- 
ceived principle  consequences  the  most  favorable  to 
himself  or  his  party.  But  is  the  principle  true? 
Is  the  first  fact  by  which  it  is  supported  incontest- 
able? It  is  this  which  should  be  examined.  It  re- 
sembles our  ancient  romance  writers,  who  all  take 
it  for  granted  that  Francus  brought  the  helmet  of 
Hector  to  France.  This  casque  was  impenetrable, 
no  doubt ;  but  had  Hector  really  worn  it  ?  The 
holy  Virgin's  milk  is  also  very  respectable;   but  do 


Dictionary.  163 

the  twenty  sacristies,  who  boast  of  having  a  gill  of 
it,  really  possess  it  ? 

Men  of  the  present  time,  as  wicked  as  foolish,  do 
not  shrink  from  the  greatest  crimes,  and  yet  fear  an 
excommunication,  which  would  render  them  ex- 
ecrable to  people  still  more  wicked  and  foolish  than 
themselves. 

Robert  and  Richard  Guiscard,  the  conquerors  of 
Apulia  and  Calabria,  were  excommunicated  by  Pope 
Leo  IX.  They  were  declared  vassals  of  the  empire  ; 
but  the  emperor,  Henry  III.,  discontented  with  these 
feudatory  conquerors,  engaged  Leo  IX.  to  launch 
the  excommunication  at  the  head  of  an  army  of 
Germans.  The  Normans,  who  did  not  fear  these 
thunderbolts  like  the  princes  of  Italy,  beat  the  Ger- 
mans and  took  the  pope  prisoner.  But  to  prevent 
the  popes  and  emperors  hereafter  from  coming  to 
trouble  them  in  their  possessions,  they  offered  their 
conquests  to  the  Church  under  the  name  of  oblata. 
It  was  thus  that  England  paid  the  Peter's  pence ; 
that  the  first  kings  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  on  recov- 
ering their  states  from  the  Saracens,  promised  two 
pounds  of  gold  a  year  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  But 
England,  Spain,  nor  Portugal  never  regarded  the 
pope  as  their  sovereign  master. 

Duke  Robert,  oblat  of  the  Church,  was  therefore 
no  feudatory  of  the  pope ;  he  could  not  be  so,  since 
the  popes  were  not  the  sovereigns  of  Rome.  This 
city  was  then  governed  by  its  senate,  and  the  bishop 
possessed  only  influence.     The  pope  was  at  Rome 


164  Philosophical 

precisely  what  the  elector  is  at  Cologne.  There  is 
a  prodigious  difference  between  the  oblat  of  a  saint 
and  the  feudatory  of  a  bishop. 

Baronius,  in  his  "Acts,"  relates  the  pretended 
homage  done  by  Robert,  duke  of  Apulia  and  Cala- 
bria, to  Nicholas  II. ;  but  this  deed  is  suspected,  like 
many  others ;  it  has  never  been  seen,  it  has  never 
been  found  in  any  archives.  Robert  entitled  himself 
"duke  by  the  grace  of  God  and  St.  Peter"  ;  but  cer- 
tainly St.  Peter  had  given  him  nothing,  nor  was  that 
saint  king  of  Rome. 

The  other  popes,  who  were  kings  no  more  than 
St.  Peter,  received  without  difficulty  the  homage  of 
all  the  princes  who  presented  themselves  to  reign 
over  Naples,  particularly  when  these  princes  were 
the  most  powerful. 

Donation  of  England  and  Ireland  to  the  Popes  by 
King  John. 

In  1213,  King  John,  vulgarly  called  Lackland,  or 
more  properly  Lackvirtue,  being  excommunicated 
and  seeing  his  kingdom  laid  under  an  interdict, 
gave  it  away  to  Pope  Innocent  III.  and  his  succes- 
sors. "Not  constrained  with  fear,  but  with  my  full 
consent  and  the  advice  of  my  barons,  for  the  remis- 
sion of  my  sins  against  God  and  the  Church,  I  resign 
England  and  Ireland  to  God,  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul, 
and  our  lord  the  Pope  Innocent,  and  to  his  succes- 
sors in  the  apostolic  chair." 

He  declared  himself  feudatory  lieutenant  of  the 


Dictionary.  165 

pope,  paid  about  eight  thousand  pounds  sterling  in 
ready  money  to  the  legate  Pandulph,  promised  to 
pay  a  thousand  more  every  year,  gave  the  first  year 
in  advance  to  the  legate  who  trampled  upon  him, 
and  swore  on  his  knees  that  he  submitted  to  lose 
all  in  the  event  of  not  paying  at  the  time  appointed. 
The  jest  of  this  ceremony  was  that  the  legate  de- 
parted with  the  money  and  forgot  to  remove  the  ex- 
communication. 

Examination    of    the    Vassalage    of    Naples    and 
England. 

It  may  be  asked  which  was  the  more  valuable,  the 
donation  of  Robert  Guiscard  or  that  of  John  Lack- 
land ;  both  had  been  excommunicated,  both  had 
given  their  states  to  St.  Peter  and  became  only  the 
farmers  of  them.  If  the  English  barons  were  in- 
dignant at  the  infamous  bargain  of  their  king  with 
the  pope,  and  cancelled  it,  the  Neapolitan  barons 
could  have  equally  cancelled  that  of  Baron  Robert; 
and  that  which  they  could  have  done  formerly  they 
certainly  can  do  at  present. 

Were  England  and  Apulia  given  to  the  pope,  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  the  Church  or  of  the  fiefs,  as 
to  a  bishop  or  a  sovereign  ?  If  to  a  bishop,  it  is  pre- 
cisely contrary  to  the  law  of  Jesus,  who  so  often  for- 
bids his  disciples  to  take  anything,  and  who  declares 
to  them  that  His  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world. 

If  as  to  a  sovereign,  it  was  high  treason  to  his 
imperial  majesty;    the  Normans  had  already  done 


1 66  Philosophical 

homage  to  the  emperor.  Thus  no  right,  spiritual  or 
temporal,  belonged  to  the  popes  in  this  affair.  When 
the  principle  is  erroneous,  all  the  deductions  are  so 
of  course.  Naples  no  more  belonged  to  the  pope 
than  England. 

There  is  still  another  method  of  providing  against 
this  ancient  bargain ;  it  is  the  right  of  the  people, 
which  is  stronger  than  the  right  of  the  fiefs.  The 
people's  right  will  not  suffer  one  sovereign  to  be- 
long to  another,  and  the  most  ancient  law  is  to  be 
master  "of  our  own,  at  least  when  we  are  not  the 
weakest. 

Of  Donations  Made  by  the  Popes. 

If  principalities  have  been  given  to  the  bishops  of 
Rome,  they  have  given  away  many  more.  There  is 
not  a  single  throne  in  Europe  to  which  they  have  not 
made  a  present.  As  soon  as  a  prince  had  conquered 
a  country,  or  even  wished  to  do  it,  the  popes  granted 
it  in  the  name  of  St.  Peter.  Sometimes  they  even 
made  the  first  advances,  and  it  may  be  said  that 
they  have  given  away  every  kingdom  but  that  of 
heaven. 

Few  people  in  France  know  that  Julius  II.  gave 
the  states  of  King  Louis  XII.  to  the  Emperor  Max- 
imilian, who  could  not  put  himself  in  possession  of 
them.  They  do  not  sufficiently  remember  that  Six- 
tus  v.,  Gregory  XIV.,  and  Clement  VIII.,  were 
ready  to  make  a  present  of  France  to  whomsoever 
Philip  II.  would  have  chosen  for  the  husband  of  his 
daughter  Clara  Eugenia. 


Dictionary.  167 

As  to  the  emperors,  there  is  not  one  since  Charle- 
magne that  the  court  of  Rome  has  not  pretended  to 
nominate.  This  is  the  reason  why  Swift,  in  his 
"Tale  of  a  Tub,"  says  "that  Lord  Peter  became 
suddenly  mad,  and  that  Martin  and  Jack,  his 
brothers,  confined  him  by  the  advice  of  their  rela- 
tions." We  simply  relate  this  drollery  as  a  pleasant 
blasphemy  of  an  English  priest  against  the  bishop 
of   Rome. 

All  these  donations  disappear  before  that  of  the 
East  and  West  Indies,  with  which  Alexander  VI.  of 
his  divine  power  and  authority  invested  Spain  and 
Portugal.  It  was  giving  almost  all  the  earth.  He 
could  in  the  same  manner  have  given  away  the 
globes  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn  with  their  satellites. 

Particular  Donations. 

The  donations  of  citizens  are  treated  quite  dif- 
ferently. The  codes  are  unanimously  agreed  that 
no  one  can  give  away  the  property  of  another  as  well 
as  that  no  person  can  take  it.     It  is  a  universal  law. 

In  France,  jurisprudence  was  uncertain  on  this 
object,  as  on  almost  all  others,  until  the  year  1731, 
when  the  equitable  Chancellor  d'Aguesseau,  having 
conceived  the  design  of  making  the  law  uniform, 
very  weakly  began  the  great  work  by  the  edict  on 
donations.  It  is  digested  in  forty-seven  articles,  but, 
in  wishing  to  render  all  the  formalities  concerning 
donations  uniform,  Flanders  was  excepted  from  the 
general  law,  and  in  excepting  Flanders,  Artois  was 


1 68  Philosophical 

forgotten,  which  should  have  enjoyed  the  same  ex- 
ception ;  so  that  in  six  years  after  the  general  law, 
a  particular  one  was  obliged  to  be  inade  for  Artois. 

These  new  edicts  concerning  donations  and  tes- 
taments were  principally  made  to  do  away  with  all 
the  commentators  who  had  considerably  embroiled 
the  laws,  having  already  compiled  six  commentaries 
upon  them. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  donations,  or  deeds  of 
gift,  extend  much  farther  than  to  the  particular  per- 
son to  whom  a  present  is  made.  For  every  present 
there  must  be  paid  to  the  farmers  of  the  royal  do- 
main— the  duty  of  control,  the  duty  of  "insinuation," 
the  duty  of  the  hundredth  penny,  the  tax  of  two  sous 
in  the  livre,  the  tax  of  eight  sous  in  the  livre,  etc. 

So  that  every  time  you  make  a  present  to  a  citi- 
zen you  are  much  more  liberal  than  you  imagine. 
You  have  also  the  pleasure  of  contributing  to  the  en- 
riching of  the  farmers-general,  but,  after  all,  this 
money  does  not  go  out  of  the  kingdom  like  that 
which  is  paid  to  the  court  of  Rome, 

DRINKING  HEALTHS. 

What  was  the  origin  of  this  custom?  Has  it 
existed  since  drinking  commenced  ?  It  appears  nat- 
ural to  drink  wine  for  our  own  health,  but  not  for 
the  health  of  others. 

The  "propino"  of  the  Greeks,  adopted  by  the  Ro- 
mans,   does    not    signify    "I    drink   to   your    good 


Dictionary.  169 

heaHh,"  but  "I  drink  first  that  you  may  drink  after- 
wards"— I  invite  you  to  drink. 

In  their  festivals  they  drink  to  celebrate  a  mis- 
tress, not  that  she  might  have  good  health.  See  in 
Martial :  "Naevia  sex  cyathis,  septcm  Justina  biba- 
iur." — "Six  cups  for  Naevia,  for  Justina  seven." 

The  English,  who  pique  themselves  upon  renew- 
ing several  ancient  customs,  drink  to  the  honor  of 
the  ladies,  which  they  call  toasting,  and  it  is  a  great 
subject  of  dispute  among  them  whether  a  lady  is 
toastworthy  or  not — whether  she  is  worthy  to  be 
toasted. 

They  drank  at  Rome  for  the  victories  of  Augus- 
tus, and  for  the  return  of  his  health.  Dion  Cassius 
relates  that  after  the  battle  of  Actium  the  senate 
decreed  that,  in  their  repasts,  libations  should  be 
made  to  him  in  the  second  service.  It  was  a  strange 
decree.  It  is  more  probable  that  flattery  had  vol- 
untarily introduced  this  meanness.  Be  it  as  it  may, 
we  read  in  Horace : 

//mc  ad  vina  redit  Icetus,  et  alter  is 
Te  meftsis  adhibet  Deuni, 
Te  inulta  prece;  te  proseqidtur  nero 
Defuso  pateris;  et  labiis  tuum 
Miscet  numen;  uti  Graecia  Castoris 

Et  ma^ni  minor e  Herculis. 
Longas  o  tftinain,  dux  bo7ie  ferias 
Praestes  Hesperiae;  dicimus  integro 
Sicci  mane  die,  dicimus  tividi, 

Quum  sol  oceano  sttbest. 

To  thee  he  chants  the  sacred  song, 

To  thee  the  rich  Hbation  pours; 
Thee  placed  his  household  gods  among, 

With  solemn  daily  prayer  adores; 
So  Castor  and  great  Hercules  of  old 
Were  with  her  gods  by  graceful  Greece  enrolled. 


170  Philosophical 

Gracious  and  good,  beneath  thy  reign 
May  Rome  her  happy  hours  employ. 

And  grateful  hail  thy  just  domain 
With  pious  hymn  and  festal  joy. 

Thus,  with  the  rising  sun  we  sober  pray, 

Thus,  in  our  wine  beneath  his  setting  ray. 

It  is  very  likely  that  hence  the  custom  arose 
among  barbarous  nations  of  drinking  to  the  health 
of  their  guests,  an  absurd  custom,  since  we  may 
drink  four  bottles  without  doing  them  the  least  good. 

The  dictionary  of  Trevoux  tells  us  that  we  should 
not  drink  to  the  health  of  our  superiors  in  their  pres- 
ence. This  may  be  the  case  in  France  or  Germany, 
but  in  England  it  is  a  received  custom.  The  dis- 
tance is  not  so  great  from  one  man  to  another  at 
London  as  at  Vienna. 

It  is  of  importance  in  England  to  drink  to  the 
health  of  a  prince  who  pretends  to  the  throne ;  it  is 
to  declare  yourself  his  partisan.  It  has  cost  more 
than  one  Scotchman  and  Hibernian  dear  for  having 
drank  to  the  health  of  the  Stuarts. 

All  the  Whigs,  after  the  death  of  King  William, 
drank  not  to  his  health,  but  to  his  memory.  A  Tory 
named  Brown,  bishop  of  Cork  in  Ireland,  a  great  en- 
emy to  William  in  Ireland,  said,  "that  he  would  put 
a  cork  in  all  those  bottles  which  were  drunk  to  the 
glory  of  this  monarch."  He  did  not  stop  at  this  silly 
pun  ;  he  wrote,  in  1702,  an  episcopal  address  to  show 
the  Irish  that  it  was  an  atrocious  impiety  to  drink  to 
the  health  of  kings,  and,  above  all,  to  their  memory ; 
that  the  latter,  in  particular,  is  a  profanation  of  tJ?Pse 


Dictionary.  171 

words  of  Jesus  Christ :  "Drink  this  in  remembrance 
of  me." 

It  is  astonishing  that  this  bishop  was  not  the  first 
who  conceived  such  a  folly.  Before  him,  the  Pres- 
byterian Prynne  had  written  a  great  book  against  the 
impious  custom  of  drinking  to  the  health  of  Chris- 
tians. 

Finally,  there  was  one  John  Geza,  vicar  of  the 
parish  of  St.  Faith,  who  published  "The  Divine  Po- 
tion to  Preserve  Spiritual  Health,  by  the  Cure  of  the 
Inveterate  Malady  of  Drinking  Healths ;  with  Clear 
and  Solid  Arguments  against  this  Criminal  Custom, 
all  for  the  Satisfaction  of  the  Public,  at  the  Request 
of  a  Worthy  Member  of  Parliament,  in  the  Year  of 
Our  Salvation  1648." 

Our  reverend  Father  Garasse,  our  reverend 
Father  Patouillet,  and  our  reverend  Father  Nonnotte 
are  nothing  superior  to  these  profound  Englishmen. 
We  have  a  long  time  wrestled  with  our  neighbors 
for  the  superiority — To  which  is  it  due? 

THE  DRUIDS. 

The  Scene  is  in   Tartarus.     The  Furies  Enttvined 
with  Serpents,  and  Whips  in  Their  Hands. 

Come  along,  Barbaquincorix,  Celtic  druid,  and 
thou,  detestable  Grecian  hierophant,  Calchas.  the 
moment  of  your  just  punishment  has  returned 
again ;  the  hour  of  vengeance  has  arrived — the  bell 
has  sounded ! 


lya  Philosophical 

THE   DRUID   AND    CALCHAS. 

Oh,  heavens!  my  head,  my  sides,  my  eyes,  my 
ears !  pardon,  ladies,  pardon ! 

CALCHAS. 

Mercy !  two  vipers  are  penetrating  my  eye-balls ! 

DRUID. 

A  serpent  is  devouring  my  entrails ! 

CALCHAS. 

Alas,  how  am  I  mangled !  And  must  my  eyes 
be  every  day  restored,  to  be  torn  again  from  my 
head? 

DRUID. 

Must  my  skin  be  renewed  only  to  dangle  in  rib- 
bons from  my  lacerated  body? 

TISIPHONE. 

It  will  teach  you  how  to  palm  off  a  miserable  par- 
asitical plant  for  a  universal  remedy  another  time. 
Will  you  still  sacrifice  boys  and  girls  to  your  god 
Theutates,  priest?  still  burn  them  in  osier  baskets 
to  the  sound  of  a  drum  ? 

DRUID. 

Never,  never ;  dear  lady,  a  little  mercy,  I  beseech 
you. 

TISIPHONE. 

You  never  had  any  yourself.  Seize  him,  ser- 
pents, and  now  another  lash ! 

ALECTO, 

Let  them  curry  well  this  Calchas,  who  advances 


Dictionary.  173 

towards  us,  "With  cruel  eye,  dark  mien,  and  bristled 
hair." 

CALCHAS. 

My  hair  is  torn  away ;  I  am  scorched,  flayed,  im- 
paled ! 

ALECTO. 

Wretch !  Will  you  again  cut  the  throat  of  a  beau- 
tiful girl,  in  order  to  obtain  a  favorable  gale,  in- 
stead of  uniting  her  to  a  good  husband? 

CALCHAS  AND  THE  DRUID. 

Oh,  what  torments !  and  yet  we  die  not. 

TISIPHONE. 

Hey-dey!  God  forgive  me,  but  I  hear  music! 
It  is  Orpheus;  why  our  serpents,  sister,  have  be- 
come as  gentle  as  lambs ! 

CALCHAS. 

My  sufferings  cease ;   how  very  strange ! 

THE  DRUID. 

I  am  altogether  recovered.  Oh,  the  power  of 
good  music!  And  who  are  you,  divine  man,  who 
thus  cures  wounds,  and  rejoices  hell  itself? 

ORPHEUS. 

My  friends,  I  am  a  priest  like  yourselves,  but  I 
never  deceived  anyone,  nor  cut  the  throat  of  either 
boy  or  girl  in  my  life.  When  on  earth,  instead  of 
making  the  gods  hated,  I  rendered  them  beloved, 
and  softened  the  manners  of  the  men  whom  you 
made  ferocious.     I  shall  exert  myself  in  the  like 


174  Philosophical 

manner  in  hell.  I  met,  just  now,  two  barbarous 
priests  whom  they  were  scourging  beyond  measure ; 
one  of  them  formerly  hewed  a  king  in  pieces  before 
the  Lord,  and  the  other  cut  the  throat  of  his  queen 
and  sovereign  at  the  horse  gate.  I  have  terminated 
their  punishment,  and,  having  played  to  them  a  tune 
on  the  violin,  they  have  promised  me  that  when  they 
return  into  the  world  they  will  live  like  honest  men. 

DRUID  AND  CALCHAS. 

We  promise  the  same  thing,  on  the  word  of  a 
priest. 

ORPHEUS. 

Yes,  but  "Passato  il  pericolo,  gabbato  il  santo." 
[The  scene  closes  with  a  figure  Dance,  performed 
by  Orpheus,  the  Condemned,  and  the  Furies,  to 
light  and  agreeable  ifwsic.] 

EASE. 

Easy  applies  not  only  to  a  thing  easily  done,  but 
also  to  a  thing  which  appears  to  be  so.  The  pencil 
of  Correggio  is  easy,  the  style  of  Quinault  is  much 
more  easy  than  that  of  Despreaux,  and  the  style  of 
Ovid  surpasses  in  facility  that  of  Persius. 

This  facility  in  painting,  music,  eloquence,  and 
poetry,  consists  in  a  natural  and  spontaneous  felic- 
ity, which  admits  of  nothing  that  implies  research, 
strength,  or  profundity.  Thus  the  pictures  of  Paul 
Veronese  have  a  much  more  easy  and  less  finished 
air  than  those  of  Michel  Angelo.  The  symphonies 


Dictionary.  175 

of  Rameau  are  superior  to  those  of  Lulli,  but  ap- 
pear less  easy.  Bossuet  is  more  truly  eloquent  and 
more  easy  than  Flechier.  Rousseau,  in  his  epistles, 
has  not  near  the  facility  and  truth  of  Despreaux. 

The  commentator  of  Despreaux  says  that  "this 
exact  and  laborious  poet  taught  the  illustrious  Ra- 
cine to  make  verses  with  difficulty,  and  that  those 
which  appear  easy  are  those  which  have  been  made 
with  the  most  difficulty." 

It  is  true  that  it  often  costs  much  pains  to  ex- 
press ourselves  with  clearness,  as  also  that  the  nat- 
ural may  be  arrived  at  by  effort ;  but  it  is  also  true 
that  a  happy  genius  often  produces  easy  beauties 
without  any  labor,  and  that  enthusiasm  goes  much 
farther  than  art. 

Most  of  the  impassioned  expressions  of  our  good 
poets  have  come  finished  from  their  pen,  and  appear 
easy,  as  if  they  had  in  reality  been  composed  with- 
out labor ;  the  imagination,  therefore,  often  con- 
ceives and  brings  forth  easily.  It  is  not  thus  with 
didactic  works,  which  require  art  to  make  them  ap- 
pear easy.  For  example,  there  is  much  less  ease 
than  profundity  in  Pope's  "Essay  on  Man." 

Bad  works  may  be  rapidly  constructed,  which, 
having  no  genius,  will  appear  easy,  and  it  is  often 
the  lot  of  those  who,  without  genius,  have  the  un- 
fortunate habit  of  composing.  It  is  in  this  sense 
that  a  personage  of  the  old  comedy,  called  the  "Ital- 
ian," says  to  another:  "Thou  makest  bad  verses 
admirablv  well." 


176  Philosophical 

The  term  "easy"  is  an  insult  to  a  woman,  but  is 
sometimes  in  society  praise  for  a  man ;  it  is,  how- 
ever, a  fault  in  a  statesman.  The  manners  of  Atti- 
cus  were  easy ;  he  was  the  most  amiable  of  the  Ro- 
mans ;  the  easy  Cleopatra  gave  herself  as  easily  to 
Antony  as  to  Caesar;  the  easy  Claudius  allowed 
himself  to  be  governed  by  Agrippina;  easy  applied 
to  Claudius  is  only  a  lenitive,  the  proper  expression 
is  weak. 

An  easy  man  is  in  general  one  possessed  of  a 
mind  which  easily  gives  itself  up  to  reason  and  re- 
monstrance— a  heart  which  melts  at  the  prayers 
which  are  made  to  it ;  while  a  weak  man  is  one  who 
allows  too  much  authority  over  him. 

ECLIPSE. 

In  the  greatest  part  of  the  known  world  every 
extraordinary  phenomenon  was  for  a  long  time  be- 
lieved to  be  the  presage  of  some  happy  or  miserable 
event.  Thus  the  Roman  historians  have  nOt  failed 
to  observe  that  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  accompanied 
the  birth  of  Romulus,  that  another  announced  his 
death,  and  that  a  third  attended  the  foundation  of 
the  city  of  Rome. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  article  entitled 
"The  Vision  of  Constantine,"  of  the  apparition  of 
the  cross  which  preceded  the  triumph  of  Christian- 
ity, and  under  the  article  on  "Prophecy,"  we  shall 
treat  of  the  new  star  which  enlightened  the  birth  of 
Jesus.    We  will,  therefore,  here  confine  ourselves  to 


Dictionary.  177 

what  has  been  said  of  the  darkness  with  which  all 
the  earth  was  covered  when  He  gave  up  the  ghost. 

The  writers  of  the  Greek  and  Romish  Churches 
have  quoted  as  authentic  two  letters  attributed  to 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  in  which  he  relates  that 
being  at  Heliopolis  in  Egypt,  with  his  friend  Apol- 
lophanes,  he  suddenly  saw,  about  the  sixth  hour,  the 
moon  pass  underneath  the  sun,  which  caused  a  great 
eclipse.  Afterwards,  in  the  ninth  hour,  they  per- 
ceived the  moon  quitting  the  place  which  she  occu- 
pied and  return  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  diameter. 
They  then  took  the  rules  of  Philip  Aridseus,  and, 
having  examined  the  course  of  the  stars,  they  found 
that  the  sun  could  not  have  been  naturally  eclipsed 
at  that  time.  Further,  they  observed  that  the  moon, 
contrary  to  her  natural  motion,  instead  of  going  to 
the  west  to  range  herself  under  the  sun,  approached 
on  the  eastern  side  and  that  she  returned  behind  on 
the  same  side,  which  caused  Apollophanes  to  say, 
"These,  my  dear  Dionysius,  are  changes  of  Divine 
things,"  to  which  Dionysius  replied,  "Either  the  au- 
thor of  nature  suffers,  or  the  machine  of  the  universe 
will  be  soon  destroyed." 

Dionysius  adds  that  having  remarked  the  exact 
time  and  year  of  this  prodigy,  and  compared  them 
with  what  Paul  afterwards  told  him,  he  yielded  up 
to  the  truth  as  well  as  his  friend.  This  is  what  led 
to  the  belief  that  the  darkness  happening  at  the  death 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  caused  by  a  supernatural  eclipse  ; 
and  what  has  extended  this  opinion  is  that  Maldonat 

Vol.  8—12 


1 78  Philosophical 

says  it  is  that  of  almost  all  the  Catholics.  How  is  it 
possible  to  resist  the  authority  of  an  ocular,  enlight- 
ened, and  disinterested  witness,  since  it  was  sup- 
posed that  when  he  saw  this  eclipse  Dionysius  was  a 
pagan  ? 

As  these  pretended  letters  of  Dionysius  were  not 
forged  until  towards  the  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, Eusebius  of  Csesarea  was  contented  with 
quoting  the  evidence  of  Phlegon,  a  freed  man  of  the 
emperor  Adrian.  This  author  was  also  a  pagan, 
and  had  written  "The  History  of  the  Olympiads," 
in  sixteen  books,  from  their  origin  to  the  year  140  of 
the  vulgar  era.  He  is  made  to  say  that  in  the  fourth 
year  of  the  two  hundred  and  second  Olympiad  there 
was  the  greatest  eclipse  of  the  sun  that  had  ever  been 
seen ;  the  day  was  changed  to  night  at  the  sixth 
hour,  the  stars  were  seen,  and  an  earthquake  over- 
threw several  edifices  in  the  city  of  Nicsea  in  Bi- 
thynia.  Eusebius  adds  that  the  same  events  are  re- 
lated in  the  ancient  monuments  of  the  Greeks,  as 
having  happened  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Tiberius. 
It  is  thought  that  Eusebius  alluded  to  Thallus,  a 
Greek  historian  already  cited  by  Justin,  Tertullian, 
and  Julius  Africanus,  but  neither  the  work  of  Thal- 
lus, nor  that  of  Phlegon  having  reached  us,  we  can 
only  judge  of  the  accuracy  of  these  two  quotations 
of  reasoning. 

It  is  true  tiiat  the  Paschal  ''Chronicle  of  the 
Greeks,"  as  well  as  St.  Jerome  Anastatius,  the  au- 
thor of  the  "Histaria  Miscclla,"  and  Freculphus  of 


Dictionarv.  179 

Luxem.  among  the  Latins,  all  unite  in  representing 
the  fragment  of  Phlegon  in  the  same  manner.  But 
it  is  known  that  these  five  witnesses,  so  uniform  in 
their  dispositions,  translated  or  copied  the  passage, 
not  from  Phlegon  himself,  but  from  Eusebius  ;  while 
John  Philoponus,  who  had  read  Phlegon,  far  from 
agreeing  with  Eusebius,  differs  from  him  by  two 
years.  We  could  also  name  3*Iaximus  and  Maleba, 
who  lived  when  the  work  of  Phlegon  still  existed, 
and  the  result  of  an  examination  of  the  whole  is  that 
five  of  the  quoted  authors  copy  Eusebius.  Philo- 
ponus, who  really  saw  the  work  of  Phlegon,  gives  a 
second  reading,  Maximus  a  third,  and  Malela  a 
fourth,  so  that  they  are  far  from  relating  the  passage 
in  the  same  manner. 

In  short,  the  calculations  of  Hodgson,  Halley, 
Whiston,  and  Gale  Morris  have  demonstrated  that 
Phlegon  and  Thallus  speak  of  a  natural  eclipse 
which  happened  November  24,  in  the  first  year  of 
the  two  hundred  and  second  Olympiad,  and  not  in 
the  fourth  year,  as  Eusebius  pretends.  Its  size  at 
Nicsea  in  Bithynia,  was,  according  to  Whiston,  only 
from  nine  to  ten  digits,  that  is  to  say,  tw^o-thirds  and 
a  half  of  the  sun's  disc.  It  began  at  a  quarter  past 
eight,  and  ended  at  five  minutes  past  ten,  and  be- 
tween Cairo  in  Egypt,  and  Jerusalem,  according  to 
Mr.  Gale  Morris,  the  sun  w^as  totally  obscured  for 
nearly  two  minutes.  At  Jerusalem  the  middle  of  the 
eclipse  happened  about  an  hour  and  a  quarter  after 
noon. 


1 80  Philosophical 

But  what  ought  to  spare  all  this  discussion  is  that 
Tertullian  says  the  day  became  suddenly  dark  while 
the  sun  was  in  the  midst  of  his  career ;  that  the 
pagans  believed  that  it  was  an  echpse,  not  knowing 
that  it  had  been  predicted  by  the  prophet  Amos  in 
these  words :  "I  will  cause  the  sun  to  go  down  at 
noon,  and  I  will  darken  the  earth  in  the  clear  day." 
"They,"  adds  Tertullian,  "who  have  sought  for  the 
cause  of  this  event  and  could  not  discover  it,  have 
denied  it ;  but  the  fact  is  certain,  and  you  will  find  it 
noted  in  your  archives." 

Origen,  on  the  contrary,  says  that  it  is  not  as- 
tonishing foreign  authors  have  said  nothing  about 
the  darknesses  of  which  the  evangelists  speak,  since 
they  only  appeared  in  the  environs  of  Jerusalem ; 
Judaea,  according  to  him,  being  designated  under  the 
name  of  all  the  earth  in  more  than  one  place  in  Scrip- 
ture. He  also  avows  that  the  passage  in  the  Gospel 
of  St.  Luke,  in  which  we  read  that  in  his  time  all 
the  earth  was  covered  with  darkness,  on  account  of 
an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  had  been  thus  falsified  by  some 
ignorant  Christian  who  thought  thereby  to  throw  a 
light  on  the  text  of  the  evangelist,  or  by  some  ill- 
intentioned  enemy  who  wished  a  pretext  to  calum- 
niate the  Church,  as  if  the  evangelists  had  remarked 
an  eclipse  at  a  time  when  it  was  very  evident  that 
it  could  not  have  happened.  "It  is  true,"  adds  he, 
"that  Phlegon  says  that  there  was  one  under  Tibe- 
rius, but  as  he  does  not  say  that  it  happened  at  the 
full  moon  there  is  nothing  wonderful  in  that." 


Dictionary.  1 8 1 

"These  obscurations,"  continues  Origen,  "were 
of  the  nature  of  those  which  covered  Egypt  in  the 
time  of  Moses,  and  were  not  felt  in  the  quarter  in 
which  the  Israelites  dwelt.  Those  of  Egypt  lasted 
three  days,  while  those  of  Jerusalem  only  lasted 
three  hours ;  the  first  were  after  the  manner  of  the 
second,  and  even  as  Moses  raised  his  hands  to 
heaven  and  invoked  the  Lord  to  draw  them  down  on 
Egypt,  so  Jesus  Christ,  to  cover  Jerusalem  with 
darkness,  extended  his  hands  on  the  cross  against  an 
ungrateful  people  who  had  cried :  'Crucify  him, 
crucify  him !'  " 

We  may,  in  this  case,  exclaim  with  Plutarch, 
that  the  darkness  of  superstition  is  more  dangerous 
than  that  of  eclipses. 

ECONOMY  (RURAL). 

The  primitive  economy,  that  which  is  the  foun- 
dation of  all  the  rest,  is  rural.  In  early  times  it 
was  exhibited  in  the  patriarchal  life  and  especiallv 
in  that  of  Abraham,  who  made  a  long  journey 
through  the  arid  deserts  of  Memphis  to  buy  corn. 
I  shall  continue,  with  due  respect,  to  discard  all  that 
is  divine  in  the  history  of  Abraham,  and  attend  to 
his  rural  economy  alone. 

I  do  not  learn  that  he  ever  had  a  house ;  he 
quitted  the  most  fertile  country  of  the  universe  and 
towns  in  which  there  were  commodious  houses,  to 
go  wandering  in  countries,  the  languages  of  which 
he  did  not  understand. 


1 82  Philosophical 

He  went  from  Sodom  into  the  desert  of  Gerar 
without  forming  the  least  estabUshment.  When  he 
turned  away  Hagar  and  the  child  Ishmael  it  was  still 
in  a  desert  and  all  the  food  he  gave  them  was  a  mor- 
sel of  bread  and  a  cruse  of  water.  When  he  was 
about  to  sacrifice  his  son  Isaac  to  the  Lord  it  was 
again  in  a  desert.  He  cut  the  wood  himself  to 
burn  the  victim  and  put  it  on  the  back  of  Isaac, 
whom  he  was  going  to  immolate. 

His  wife  died  in  a  place  called  Kirgath-arba,  or 
Hebron ;  he  had  not  six  feet  of  earth  in  which  to 
bury  her,  but  was  obliged  to  buy  a  cave  to  deposit 
her  body.  This  was  the  only  piece  of  land  which 
he  ever  possessed. 

However,  he  had  many  children,  for,  without 
reckoning  Isaac  and  his  posterity,  his  second  wife 
Keturah,  at  the  age  of  one  iTundred  and  forty  years, 
according  to  the  ordinary  calculation,  bore  him  five 
male  children,  who  departed  towards  Arabia. 

It  is  not  said  that  Isaac  had  a  single  piece  of  land 
in  the  country  in  which  his  father  died ;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  went  into  the  desert  of  Gerar  with  his  wife, 
Rebecca,  to  the  same  Abimelech,  king  of  Gerar,  who 
had  been  in  love  with  his  mother. 

The  king  of  the  desert  became  also  amorous  of 
Rebecca,  whom  her  husband  caused  to  pass  for  his 
sister,  as  Abraham  had  acted  with  regard  to  Sarah 
and  this  same  King  Abimelech  forty  years  before. 
It  is  rather  astonishing  that  in  this  family  the  wife 
always  passed  for  the  sister  when  there  was  any- 


Dictionary.  1 83 

thing'  to  be  gained,  but  as  these  facts  are  consecrated, 
it  is  for  us  to  maintain  a  respectful  silence. 

Scripture  says  that  Abraham  enriched  himself  in 
this  horrible  country,  which  became  fertile  for  his 
benefit,  and  that  he  became  extremely  powerful. 
But  it  is  also  mentioned  that  he  had  no  water  to 
drink ;  that  he  had  a  great  quarrel  with  the  king's 
herdsmen  for  a  well ;  and  it  is  easy  to  discover  that 
he  still  had  not  a  house  of  his  own. 

His  children,  Esau  and  Jacob,  had  not  a  greater 
establishment  than  their  father.  Jacob  was  obliged 
to  seek  his  fortune  in  Mesopotamia,  w^hence  Abra- 
ham came ;  he  served  seven  years  for  one  of  the 
daughters  of  Laban,  and  seven  other  years  to  obtain 
the  second  daughter.  He  fled  with  his  wives  and 
the  flocks  of  his  father-in-law,  who  pursued  him. 
A  precarious  fortune,  that  of  Jacob. 

Esau  is  represented  as  wandering  like  Jacob. 
None  of  the  twelve  patriarchs,  the  children  of  Jacob, 
had  any  fixed  dwelling,  or  a  field  of  which  they  were 
the  proprietors.  They  reposed  in  their  tents  like 
Bedouin  Arabs. 

It  is  clear  that  this  patriarchal  life  would  not 
conveniently  suit  the  temperature  of  our  atmos- 
phere. A  good  cultivator,  such  as  Pignoux  of  Au- 
vergne,  must  have  a  convenient  house  with  an  as- 
pect towards  the  east,  large  barns  and  stables,  stalls 
properly  built,  the  whole  amounting  to  about  fifty 
thousand  francs  of  our  present  money  in  value.  He 
must  sow  a  hundred  acres  with  corn,  besides  having 


1 84  Philosophical 

good  pastures;  he  should  possess  some  acres  of 
vineyard,  and  about  fifty  for  inferior  grain  and 
herbs,  thirty  acres  of  wood,  a  plantation  of  mul- 
berries, silkworms,  and  bees.  With  all  these  advan- 
tages well  economized,  he  can  maintain  a  family  in 
abundance.  His  land  will  daily  improve ;  he  will 
support  them  without  fearing  the  irregularity  of  the 
seasons  and  the  weight  of  taxes,  because  one  good 
year  repairs  the  damages  of  two  bad  ones.  He  will 
enjoy  in  his  domain  a  real  sovereignty,  which  will 
be  subject  only  to  the  laws.  It  is  the  most  natural 
state  of  man,  the  most  tranquil,  the  most  happy,  and, 
unfortunately,  the  most  rare. 

The  son  of  this  venerable  patriarch,  seeing  him- 
self rich,  is  disgusted  with  paying  the  humiliating 
tax  of  the  taille.  Having  unfortunately  learned  some 
Latin  he  repairs  to  town,  buys  a  post  which  exempts 
him  from  the  tax  and  which  bestows  nobility.  He 
sells  his  domain  to  pay  for  his  vanity,  marries  a  girl 
brought  up  in  luxury  who  dishonors  and  ruins  him ; 
he  dies  in  beggary,  and  his  only  son  wears  a  livery  in 
Paris. 

ECONOMY  OF  SPEECH— 

TO  SPEAK   BY  ECONOMY. 

This  is  an  expression  consecrated  in  its  appro- 
priation by  the  fathers  of  the  Church  and  even  by 
the  primitive  propagators  of  our  holy  religion.  It 
signifies  the  application  of  oratory  to  circumstances. 


Dictionary.  185 

For  example  :  St.  Paul,  being  a  Christian,  comes 
to  the  temple  of  the  Jews  to  perform  the  Judaic  rites, 
in  order  to  show  that  he  does  not  forsake  the  Mo- 
saic law ;  he  is  recognized  at  the  end  of  a  week  and 
accused  of  having  profaned  the  temple.  Loaded 
with  blows,  he  is  dragged  along  by  the  mob ;  the 
tribune  of  the  cohort — trihunis  cohort  is — arrives, 
and  binds  him  with  a  double  chain.  The  next  day 
this  tribune  assembles  the  council  and  carries  Paul 
before  it,  when  the  High  Priest  Ananias  commences 
proceedings  by  giving  him  a  box  on  the  ear,  on 
which  Paul  salutes  him  with  the  epithet  of  "a  whited 
wall." 

"But  when  Paul  perceived  that  the  one  part  were 
Sadducees  and  the  other  Pharisees,  he  cried  out  in 
the  council,  'Men  and  brethren,  I  am  a  Pharisee,  the 
son  of  a  Pharisee,  of  the  hope  and  resurrection  of 
the  dead  I  am  called  in  question.'  And  when  he  had 
so  said  there  arose  a  discussion  between  the  Phari- 
sees and  the  Sadducees,  and  the  multitude  was  di- 
vided. For  the  Sadducees  say  that  there  is  no 
resurrection,  neither  angel  nor  spirit,  but  the  Phari- 
sees confess  both." 

It  is  very  evident  from  the  text  that  Paul  was  not 
a  Pharisee  after  he  became  a  Christian  and  that 
there  was  in  this  affair  no  question  either  of  resur- 
rection or  hope,  of  angel  or  spirit. 

The  text  shows  that  Paul  spoke  thus  only  to  em- 
broil the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees.  This  was  speak- 
ing with  economy,  that  is  to  say,  with  prudence ;   it 


1 86  Philosophical 

was  a  pious  artifice  which,  perhaps,  would  not  have 
been  permitted  to  any  but  an  apostle. 

It  is  thus  that  almost  all  the  fathers  of  the  Church 
have  spoken  "with  economy."  St.  Jerome  develops 
vhis  method  admirably  in  his  fifty-fourth  letter  to 
Pammachus.  Weigh  his  words.  After  having  said 
;hat  there  are  occasions  when  it  is  necessary  to  pre- 
•:nt  a  loaf  and  to  throw  a  stone,  he  continues  thus : 

"Pray  read  Demosthenes,  read  Cicero,  and  if 
these  rhetoricians  displease  you  because  their  art 
consists  in  speaking  of  the  seeming  rather  than  the 
true,  read  Plato,  Theophrastus,  Xenophon,  Aris- 
totle, and  all  those  who,  having  dipped  into  the  foun- 
tain of  Socrates,  drew  different  waters  from  it.  Is 
there  among  them  any  candor,  any  simplicity? 
What  terms  among  them  are  not  ambiguous,  and 
what  sense  do  they  not  make  free  with  to  bear  away 
the  palm  of  victory  ?  Origen,  Methodius,  Eusebius, 
x^pollinarus,  have  written  a  million  of  arguments 
against  Celsus  and  Porphyry.  Consider  with  what 
artifice,  with  what  problematic  subtlety  they  combat 
tile  spirit  of  the  devil.  They  do  not  say  what  they 
think,  but  what  it  is  expedient  to  say :  Non  quod 
sciitiuiit,  sed  quod  necesse  est  dicnnt.  And  not  to 
mention  other  Latins — Tertullian,  Cyprian.  Alinu- 
tius,  Victorinus,  Lactantius,  and  Hilarius — whom  I 
will  not  cite  here ;  I  will  content  myself  with  relat- 
ing the  example  of  the  Apostle  Paul,"  etc. 

St.  Augustine  often  writes  with  economy.  He 
so  accommodates  himself  to  time  and  circumstances 


Dictionary.  187 

that  in  one  of  his  epistles  he  confesses  that  he  ex- 
plained the  Trinity  only  because  he  must  say  some- 
thing. 

Assuredly  this  was  not  because  he  doubted  the 
Holy  Trinity,  but  he  felt  how  ineffable  this  mystery 
is  and  wished  to  content  the  curiosity  of  the  people. 

This  method  was  always  received  in  theology. 
It  employed  an  argument  against  the  Eucratics, 
which  was  the  cause  of  triumph  to  the  Carpocratians  ; 
and  when  it  afterwards  disputed  with  the  Carpo- 
cratians its  arms  were  changed. 

It  is  asserted  that  Jesus  Christ  died  for  many 
when  the  number  of  rejected  is  set  forth,  but  \Vhen 
his  universal  bounty  is  to  be  manifested  he  is  said  to 
have  died  for  all.  Here  you  take  the  real  sense  for 
the  figurative ;  there  the  figurative  for  the  real,  as 
prudence  and  expediency  direct. 

Such  practices  are  not  admitted  in  justice.  A 
witness  would  be  punished  v/ho  told  the  pour  and 
centre  of  a  capital  offence.  But  there  is  an  infinite 
difference  between  vile  human  interests,  which  re- 
quire the  greatest  clearness,  and  divine  interests, 
which  are  hidden  in  an  impenetrable  abyss.  The 
same  judges  who  require  indubitable  demonstrative 
proofs  will  be  contented  in  sermons  with  moral 
proofs,  and  even  with  declamations  exhibiting  no 
proofs  at  all. 

St.  Augustine  speaks  with  economy,  w^hen  he 
says,  "I  believe,  because  it  is  absurd ;  I  believe,  be- 
cause it  is  impossible."    These  words,  which  would 


1 88  Philosophical 

be  extravagant  in  all  worldly  affairs,  are  very  re- 
spectable in  theology.  They  signify  that  what  is 
absurd  and  impossible  to  mortal  eyes  is  not  so  to 
the  eyes  of  God ;  God  has  revealed  to  me  these  pre- 
tended absurdities,  these  apparent  impossibilities, 
therefore  I  ought  to  believe  them. 

An  advocate  would  not  be  allowed  to  speak  thus 
at  the  bar.  They  would  confine  in  a  lunatic  asylum 
a  witness  who  might  say,  "I  assert  that  the  accused, 
while  shut  up  in  a  country  house  in  ]\Iartinique, 
killed  a  man  in  Paris,  and  I  am  the  more  certain  of 
this  homicide  because  it  is  absurd  and  impossible." 
But  revelations,  miracles,  and  faith  are  quite  a  dis- 
tinct order  of  things. 

The  same  St.  Augustine  observes  in  his  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-third  letter,  "It  is  written  that  the 
whole  world  belongs  to  the  faithful,  and  infidels 
have  not  an  obolus  that  they  possess  legitimately." 

If  upon  this  principle  a  brace  of  bankers  were  to 
wait  upon  me  to  assure  me  that  they  were  of  the 
faithful,  and  in  that  capacity  had  appropriated  the 
property  belonging  to  me,  a  miserable  worldling,  to 
themselves,  it  is  certain  that  they  would  be  com- 
mitted to  the  Chatelet,  in  spite  of  the  economy  of  the 
language  of  St.  Augustine. 

St.  Irengsus  asserts  that  w^e  must  not  condemn  the 
incest  of  the  two  daughters  of  Lot,  nor  that  of  Tha- 
mar  with  her  father-in-law,  because  the  Holy  Scrip- 
ture has  not  expressly  declared  them  criminal.  This 
verbal  economy  prevents  not  the  legal  punishment 


Dictionary.  189 

of  incest  among  ourselves.  It  is  true  that  if  the 
Lord  expressly  ordered  people  to  commit  incest  it 
would  not  be  sinful,  which  is  the  economy  of  Ire- 
naeus.  His  laudable  object  is  to  make  us  respect 
everything  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  but  as  God  has 
not  expressly  praised  the  foregoing  doings  of  the 
daughters  of  Lot  and  of  Judah  we  are  permitted  to 
condemn  them. 

All  the  first  Christians,  without  exception, 
thought  of  war  like  the  Quakers  and  Dunkards  of 
the  present  day,  and  the  Brahmins,  both  ancient  and 
modern.  Tertullian  is  the  father  who  is  most  ex- 
plicit against  this  legal  species  of  murder,  which  our 
vile  human  nature  renders  expedient.  "No  custom, 
no  rule,"  says  he,  "can  render  this  criminal  de- 
struction legitimate." 

Nevertheless,  after  assuring  us  that  no  Christian 
can  carry  arms,  he  says,  "by  economy,"  in  the  same 
book,  in  order  to  intimidate  the  Roman  Empire,  "al- 
though of  such  recent  origin,  we  fill  your  cities  and 
your  armies." 

It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  he  asserts  that  Pilate 
was  a  Christian  in  his  heart,  and  the  whole  of  his 
apology  is  filled  with  similar  assertions,  which  re- 
doubled the  zeal  of  his  prosel)^tes. 

Let  us  terminate  these  examples  of  the  economi- 
cal style,  which  are  numberless,  by  a  passage  of  St. 
Jerome,  in  his  controversy  with  Jovian  upon  second 
marriages.  The  holy  Jerome  roundly  asserts  that  it 
is  plain,  by  the  formation  of  the  two  sexes — in  the 


i^o  Philosophical 

description  of  which  he  is  rather  particular — that 
they  are  destined  for  each  other,  and  for  propaga- 
tion. It  follows,  therefore,  that  they  are  to  make 
love  without  ceasing,  in  order  that  their  respective 
faculties  may  not  be  bestowed  in  vain.  This  being 
the  case,  why  should  not  men  and  women  marry 
again?  Why,  indeed,  is  a  man  to  deny  his  wife  to 
his  friend  if  a  cessation  of  attention  on  his  own  part 
be  personally  convenient?  He  may  present  the  wife 
of  another  with  a  loaf  of  bread  if  she  be  hungry, 
and  why  may  not  her  other  wants  be  supplied,  if 
they  are  urgent  ?  Functions  are  not  given  to  lie  dor- 
mant, etc. 

After  such  a  passage  it  is  useless  to  quote  any 
more,  but  it  is  necessary  to  remark,  by  the  way,  that 
the  economical  style,  so  intimately  connected  with 
the  polemical,  ought  to  be  employed  with  the  great- 
est circumspection,  and  that  it  belongs  not  to  the 
profane  to  imitate  the  things  hazarded  by  the  saints, 
either  as  regards  the  heat  of  their  zeal  or  the 
piquancy  of  their  delivery. 

ELEGANCE. 

According  to  some  authors  this  word  comes 
from  "electus,"  chosen ;  it  does  not  appear  that  its 
etymology  can  be  derived  from  any  other  Latin 
word,  since  all  is  choice  that  is  elegant.  Elegance  is 
the  result  of  regularity  and  grace. 

This  word  is  employed  in  speaking  of  painting 
and  sculpture.     Elegans  signiun  is  opposed  to  sig- 


Dictionary.  191 

iiiun  rigens — a  proportionate  figure,  the  rounded 
outlines  of  which  are  expressed  with  softness,  to  a 
cold  and  badly-finished  figure. 

The  severity  of  the  ancient  Romans  gave  an 
odious  sense  to  the  word  "elegantia."  They  regarded 
all  kinds  of  elegance  as  affectation  and  far- 
fetched politeness,  unworthy  the  gravity  of  the  first 
ages.  "Vitce  non  laudi  fuit,"  says  Aulus  Gellius. 
They  call  him  an  "elegant  man,"  whom  in  these 
days  we  designate  a  petit-maUre  (bell us  homuncio ) , 
and  which  the  English  call  a  "beau" ;  but  towards 
the  time  of  Cicero,  when  manners  received  their  last 
degree  of  refinement,  elegans  was  always  deemed 
laudatory.  Cicero  makes  use  of  this  word  in  a  hun- 
dred places  to  describe  a  man  or  a  polite  discourse. 
At  that  time  even  a  repast  was  called  elegant,  which 
is  scarcely  the  case  among  us. 

This  term  among  the  French,  as  among  the  an- 
cient Romans,  is  confined  to  sculpture,  painting,  elo- 
quence, and  still  more  to  poetry ;  it  does  not  pre- 
cisely mean  the  same  thing  as  grace. 

The  word  "grace"  applies  particularly  to  tlie 
countenance,  and  we  do  not  say  an  elegant  face,  as 
we  say  elegant  contours ;  the  reason  is  that  grace 
always  relates  to  something  in  motion,  and  it  is  in 
the  countenance  that  the  mind  appears ;  thus  we  do 
not  say  an  elegant  gait,  because  gait  includes  mo- 
tion. 

The  elegance  of  a  discourse  is  not  its  eloquence ; 
it  is  a  part  of  it ;  it  is  neither  the  harmony  nor  metre 


192  Philosophical 

alone;  it  is  clearness,  metre,  and  choice  of  words, 
united. 

There  are  languages  in  Europe  in  which  nothing 
is  more  scarce  than  an  elegant  expression.  Rude 
terminations,  frequent  consonants,  and  auxihary 
verbs  grammatically  repeated  in  the  same  sentence, 
offend  the  ears  even  of  the  natives  themselves. 

A  discourse  may  be  elegant  without  being  good, 
elegance  being,  in  reality,  only  a  choice  of  words; 
but  a  discourse  cannot  be  absolutely  good  without 
being  elegant.  Elegance  is  still  more  necessary  to 
poetry  than  eloquence,  because  it  is  a  part  of  that 
harmony  so  necessary'  to  verse. 

An  orator  may  convince  and  affect  even  without 
elegance,  purity,  or  number;  a  poet  cannot  really 
do  so  without  being  elegant :  it  is  one  of  the  princi- 
pal merits  of  Virgil.  Horace  is  much  less  elegant 
in  his  satires  and  epistles,  so  that  he  is  much  less  of 
a  poet  sermoni  proprior. 

The  great  point  in  poetry  and  the  oratorical  art 
is  that  the  elegance  should  never  appear  forced  ;  and 
the  poet  in  that,  as  in  other  things,  has  greater  diffi- 
culties than  the  orator,  for  harmony  being  the  base 
of  his  art,  he  must  not  permit  a  succession  of  harsh 
syllables.  He  must  even  sometimes  sacrifice  a  little 
of  the  thought  to  elegance  of  expression,  which  is  a 
constraint  that  the  orator  never  experiences. 

It  should  be  remarked  that  if  elegance  always 
appears  easy,  all  that  is  easy  and  natural  is  not,  how- 
ever, elegant. 


Dictionary.  193 

It  is  seldom  said  of  a  comedy  that  it  is  elegantly 
written.  The  simplicity  and  rapidity  of  a  familiar 
dialogue  exclude  this  merit,  so  proper  to  all  other 
poetry.  Elegance  would  seem  inconsistent  with  the 
comic.  A  thing  elegantly  said  would  not  be  laughed 
at,  though  most  of  the  verses  of  Moliere's  "Amphit- 
ryon," with  the  exception  of  those  of  mere  pleas- 
antry, are  elegantly  written.  The  mixture  of  gods 
and  men  in  this  piece,  so  unique  in  its  kind,  and  the 
irregular  verses,  forming  a  number  of  madrigals, 
are  perhaps  the  cause. 

A  madrigal  requires  to  be  more  elegant  than  an 
epigram,  because  the  madrigal  bears  somewhat  the 
nature  of  the  ode,  and  the  epigram  belongs  to  the 
comic.  The  one  is  made  to  express  a  delicate  senti- 
ment, and  the  other  a  ludicrous  one. 

Elegance  should  not  be  attended  to  in  the  sub- 
lime :  it  would  weaken  it.  If  we  read  of  the  elegance 
of  the  Jupiter  Olympus  of  Phidias,  it  would  be  a 
satire.  The  elegance  of  the  "Venus  of  Praxiteles" 
may  be  properly  alluded  to. 

ELIAS  OR  ELIJAH,  AND  ENOCH. 

Elias  and  Enoch  are  two  very  important  per- 
sonages of  antiquity.  They  are  the  only  mortals 
who  have  been  taken  out  of  the  world  without  hav- 
ing first  tasted  of  death.  A  very  learned  man  has 
pretended  that  these  are  allegorical  personages. 
The  father  and  mother  of  Elias  are  unknown.     He 

believes  that  his  country,  Gilead,  signifies  nothing" 
Vol.  y— 13 


194  Philosophical 

but  the  circulation  of  time.  He  proves  it  to  have 
come  from  Galgala,  which  signifies  revolution.  But 
what  signifies  the  name  of  the  village  of  Galgala! 

The  word  Elias  has  a  sensible  relation  to  that 
of  Elios,  the  sun.  The  burned  sacrifice  offered  by 
Elias,  and  lighted  by  fire  from  heaven,  is  an  image 
of  that  which  can  be  done  by  the  united  rays  of  the 
sun.  The  rain  which  falls,  after  great  heats,  is  also 
a  physical  truth. 

The  chariot  of  fire  and  the  fiery  horses,  which 
bore  Elias  to  heaven,  are  a  lively  image  of  the  four 
horses  of  the  sun.  The  return  of  Elias  at  the  end 
of  the  world  seems  to  accord  with  the  ancient  opin- 
ion, that  the  sun  would  extinguish  itself  in  the 
waters,  in  the  midst  of  the  general  destruction  that 
was  expected,  for  almost  all  antiquity  was  for  a  long 
time  persuaded  that  the  world  would  sooner  or  later 
be  destroyed. 

We  do  not  adopt  these  allegories ;  we  only  stand 
by  those  related  in  the  Old  Testament. 

Enoch  is  as  singular  a  personage  as  Elias,  only 
that  Genesis  names  his  father  and  son,  while  the 
family  of  Elias  is  unknown.  The  inhabitants  of 
both  East  and  West  have  celebrated  this  Enoch. 

The  Holy  Scripture,  which  is  our  infallible  guide, 
informs  us  that  Enoch  was  the  father  of  Methuselah, 
or  Methusalem,  and  that  he  only  dwelt  on  the  earth 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  years,  which  seems  a 
very  short  life  for  one  of  the  first  patriarchs.  It  is 
said  that  he  walked  in  the  way  of  God  and  that  he 


Dictionary.       ,  195 

appeared  no  longer  because  God  carried  him  away. 
"It  is  that,"  says  Calmet,  "which  makes  the  holy 
fathers  and  most  of  the  commentators  assure  us  that 
Enoch  still  lives ;  that  God  has  borne  him  out  of  the 
world  as  well  as  Elias ;  that  both  will  come  before 
the  last  judgment  to  oppose  the  antichrist ;  that 
Elias  will  preach  to  the  Jews,  and  Enoch  to  the 
Gentiles." 

St.  Paul,  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews — which 
has  been  contested — says  expressly,  "by  faith  Enoch 
was  translated,  that  he  should  not  see  death,  be- 
cause death  had  translated  him." 

St.  Justin,  or  somebody  who  had  taken  his  name, 
says  that  Elias  and  Enoch  are  in  a  terrestrial  para- 
dise, and  that  they  there  wait  the  second  coming  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

St.  Jerome,  on  the  contrary,  believes  that  Enoch 
and  Elias  are  in  heaven.  It  is  the  same  Enoch,  the 
seventh  man  after  Adam,  who  is  pretended  to  have 
written  the  book  quoted  by  St.  Jude. 

Tertullian  says  that  this  work  was  preserved  in 
the  ark,  and  even  that  Enoch  made  a  second  copy 
of  it  after  the  deluge. 

This  is  what  the  Holy  Scripture  and  the  holy 
fathers  relate  of  Enoch ;  but  the  profane  writers  of 
the  East  tell  us  much  more.  They  believe  that  there 
really  was  an  Enoch,  and  that  he  was  the  first  who 
made  slaves  of  prisoners  of  war;  they  sometimes 
call  him  Enoc,  and  sometimes  Edris.  They  say  that 
he  was  the  same  who  gave  laws  to  the  Egyptians 


196  Philosophical 

under  the  name  of  Thaut,  called  by  the  Greeks 
Hermes  Trismegistus.  They  give  him  a  son  named 
Sabi,  the  author  of  the  religion  of  the  Sabseans. 

There  was  a  tradition  in  Phrygia  on  a  certain 
Anach,  the  same  whom  the  Hebrews  call  Enoch, 
The  Phrygians  held  this  tradition  from  the  Chal- 
dseans  or  Babylonians,  who  also  recognized  an 
Enoch,  or  Anach,  as  the  inventor  of  astronomy. 

-They  wept  for  Enoch  one  day  in  the  year  in 
Phrygia,  as  they  wept  for  Adonis  among  the  Phoeni- 
cians. 

The  ingenious  and  profound  writer,  who  believes 
Elias  a  person  purely  allegorical,  thinks  the  same  of 
Enoch,  He  believes  that  Enoch,  Anach,  Annoch, 
signified  the  year ;  that  the  Orientals  wept  for  it,  as 
for  Adonis,  and  that  they  rejoiced  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  new  year ;  that  Janus,  afterwards  known 
in  Italy,  was  the  ancient  Anach,  or  Annoch,  of  Asia ; 
that  not  only  Enoch  formerly  signified,  among  all 
nations,  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  year,  but  the 
last  day  of  the  week ;  that  the  names  of  Anne,  John, 
Januarius,  Janvier,  and  January,  all  come  from  the 
same  source. 

It  is  difficult  to  penetrate  the  depths  of  ancient 
history.  When  we  seize  truth  in  the  dark,  we  are 
never  sure  of  retaining  her.  It  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  a  Christian  to  hold  by  the  Scriptures,  what- 
ever difficulty  he  may  have  in  understanding  them. 


Dictionary.  197 

ELOQUENCE. 

Eloquence  was  created  before  the  rules  of  rhet- 
oric, as  the  languages  are  formed  before  grammar. 

Nature  renders  men  eloquent  under  the  influence 
of  great  interests  or  passions.  A  person  much  ex- 
cited sees  things  with  a  different  eye  from  other 
men.  To  him  all  is  the  object  of  rapid  comparison 
and  metaphor.  Without  premeditation,  he  vivifies 
all,  and  makes  all  who  listen  to  him  partake  of  his 
enthusiasm. 

A  very  enlightened  philosopher  has  remarked 
that  people  often  express  themselves  by  figures ; 
that  nothing  is  more  common  or  more  natural  than 
the  turns  called  tropes. 

Thus,  in  all  languages,  the  heart  burns,  courage 
is  kindled,  the  eyes  sparkle ;  the  mind  is  oppressed, 
it  is  divided,  it  is  exhausted ;  the  blood  freezes,  the 
head  is  turned  upside  down ;  we  are  inflated  with 
pride,  intoxicated  with  vengeance.  Nature  is  every- 
where painted  in  these  strong  images,  which  have 
become  common. 

It  is  from  her  that  instinct  learns  to  assume  a 
modest  tone  and  air,  when  it  is  necessary.  The  nat- 
ural desire  of  captivating  our  judges  and  masters ; 
the  concentrated  energies  of  a  profoundly  stricken 
soul,  which  prepares  to  display  the  sentiments  which 
oppress  it,  are  the  first  teachers  of  this  art. 

It  is  the  same  nature  which  sometimes  inspires 
lively  and  animated  sallies ;   a  strong  impulse  or  a 


198  Philosophical 

pressing  danger  prompts  the  imagination  suddenly. 
Thus  a  captain  of  the  first  caliphs,  seeing  the  Mus- 
sulmans fly  from  the  field  of  battle,  cried  out, 
"Where  are  you  running  to  ?  Your  enemies  are  not 
there." 

This  speech  has  been  given  to  many  captains ;  it 
is  attributed  to  Cromwell.  Strong  minds  much 
oftener  accord  than  fine  wits. 

Rasi,  a  Mussulman,  captain  of  the  time  of  Ma- 
homet, seeing  his  Arabs  frightened  at  the  death  of 
their  general,  Derar,  said  to  them,  "What  does  it 
signify  that  Derar  is  dead?  God  is  living,  and  ob- 
serves your  actions." 

Where  is  there  a  more  eloquent  man  than  that 
English  sailor  who  decided  the  war  against  Spain  in 
1740?  "When  the  Spaniards,  having  mutilated  me, 
were  going  to  kill  me,  I  recommended  my  soul  to 
God,  and  my  vengeance  to  my  country!" 

Nature,  then,  elicits  eloquence ;  and  if  it  be  said 
that  poets  are  created  and  orators  formed,  it  is  ap- 
plicable only  when  eloquence  is  forced  to  study  the 
laws,  the  genius  of  the  judges,  and  the  manners  of 
the  times.     Nature  alone  is  spontaneously  eloquent. 

The  precepts  always  follow  the  art.  Tisias  was 
the  first  who  collected  the  laws  of  eloquence,  of 
which  ni:ture  gives  the  first  rules.  Plato  afterwards 
said,  in  his  "Gorgias,"  that  an  orator  should  have 
the  subtlety  of  the  logician,  the  science  of  the  philos- 
opher, almost  the  diction  of  the  poet,  and  the  voice 
and  gesture  of  the  greatest  actors. 


Dictionary.  199 

Aristotle,  also,  showed  that  true  philosophy  is  the 
secret  guide  to  perfection  in  all  the  arts.  He  dis- 
covered the  sources  of  eloquence  in  his  "Book  of 
Rhetoric."  He  showed  that  logic  is  the  foundation 
of  the  art  of  persuasion,  and  that  to  be  eloquent  is  to 
know  how  to  demonstrate. 

He  distinguished  three  kinds  of  eloquence :  the 
deliberative,  the  demonstrative,  and  the  judiciary. 
The  deliberative  is  employed  to  exhort  those  who 
deliberate  in  taking  a  part  in  war,  in  peace,  etc. ;  the 
demonstrative,  to  show  that  which  is  worthy  of 
praise  or  blame ;  the  judiciary,  to  persuade,  absolve, 
condemn,  etc. 

He  afterwards  treats  of  the  manners  and  passions 
with  w^hich  all  orators  should  be  acquainted. 

He  examines  the  proofs  which  should  be  em- 
ployed in  these  three  species  of  eloquence,  and 
finally  he  treats  of  elocution,  without  which  all 
would  languish.  He  recommends  metaphors,  pro- 
vided they  are  just  and  noble ;  and,  above  all,  he  re- 
quires consistency  and  decorum. 

All  these  precepts  breathe  the  enlightened  preci- 
sion of  a  philosopher,  and  the  politeness  of  an  Athe- 
nian;  and,  in' giving  the  rules  of  eloquence,  he  is 
eloquent  with  simplicity. 

It  is  to  be  remarked,  that  Greece  was  the  only 
country  in  the  world  in  which  the  laws  of  eloquence 
were  then  known,  because  it  was  the  only  one  in 
which  true  eloquence  existed. 

The  grosser  art  was  known  to  all  men  ;   sublime 


200  PhiJosophical 

traits  have  everywhere  escaped  from  nature  at  all 
times;  but  to  rouse  the  minds  of  the  whole  of  a 
polished  nation — to  please,  convince,  and  affect  at 
the  same  time,  belonged  only  to  the  Greeks. 

The  Orientals  were  almost  all  slaves ;  and  it  is 
one  of  the  characteristics  of  servitude  to  exaggerate 
everything.  Thus  the  Asiatic  eloquence  was  mon- 
strous. The  West  was  barbarous  in  the  time  of 
Aristotle. 

True  eloquence  began  to  show  itself  in  the  time 
of  the  Gracchi,  and  w^as  not  perfected  until  the  time 
of  Cicero.  Mark  Antony,  the  orator  Hortensius, 
Curion,  Caesar,  and  several  others,  were  eloquent 
men. 

This  eloquence  perished  with  the  republic,  like 
that  of  Athens.  Sublime  eloquence,  it  is  said,  be- 
longs only  to  liberty ;  it  consists  in  telling  bold 
truths,  in  displaying  strong  reasons  and  representa- 
tions. A  man  often  dislikes  truth,  fears  reason,  and 
likes  a  well-turned  compliment  better  than  the  sub- 
limest  eloquence. 

Cicero,  after  having  given  the  examples  in  his 
harangues,  gave  the  precepts  in  his  "Book  of  the 
Orator";  he  followed  almost  all  the  methods  of 
Aristotle,  and  explained  himself  in  the  style  of 
Plato. 

It  distinguishes  the  simple  species,  the  temper- 
ate, and  the  sublime. 

Rollin  has  followed  this  division  in  his  "Treatise 
on  Study" ;  and  he  pretends  that  which  Cicero  does 


Dictionary.  20i 

not,  that  the  "temperate"  is  a  beautiful  river,  shaded 
with  green  forests  on  both  sides ;  the  "simple,"  a 
properly-served  table,  of  which  all  the  meats  are  of 
excellent  flavor,  and  from  which  all  refinement  is 
banished ;  that  the  "sublime"  thunders  forth,  and  is 
an  impetuous  current  which  overthrows  all  that  re- 
sists it. 

Without  sitting  down  to  this  table,  without  fol- 
lowing this  thunderbolt,  this  current,  or  this  river, 
every  man  of  sense  must  see  that  simple  eloquence 
is  that  which  has  simple  things  to  expose,  and  that 
clearness  and  elegance  are  all  that  are  necessary  to 
it. 

There  is  no  occasion  to  read  Aristotle,  Cicero, 
and  Quintilian,  to  feel  that  an  advocate  who  begins 
by  a  pompous  exordium  on  the  subject  of  a  partition 
wall  is  ridiculous ;  it  was,  however,  the  fault  of  the 
bar  until  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century ; 
they  spoke  with  emphasis  of  the  most  trivial  things. 
Volumes  of  these  examples  may  be  compiled ;  but 
all  might  be  reduced  to  this  speech  of  a  witty  advo- 
cate, who,  observing  that  his  adversary  was  speak- 
ing of  the  Trojan  war  and  of  Scamander,  inter- 
rupted him  by  saying,  "The  court  will  observe  that 
my  client  is  not  called  Scamander,  but  Michaut." 
The  sublime  species  can  only  regard  powerful  in- 
terests, treated  of  in  a  great  assembly. 

There  may  still  be  seen  lively  traces  of  it  in  the 
Parliament  of  England':  several  harangues  partook 
of  it  which  were  pronounced  there  in  1739,  when 


202  Philosophical 

they  debated  about  declaring  war  against  Spain. 
The  spirits  of  Cicero  and  Demosthenes  seem  to  have 
dictated  several  passages  in  their  speeches ;  but  they 
will  not  descend  to  posterity  like  those  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  because  they  want  the  art  and  charm 
of  diction,  which  place  the  seal  of  immortality  on 
good  works. 

The  temperate  species  is  that  of  those  preparatory 
discourses,  of  those  public  speeches,  and  of  those 
studied  compliments,  in  which  the  deficiency  of  mat- 
ter must  be  concealed  with  flowers. 

These  three  species  are  often  mingled,  as  also  the 
three  objects  of  eloquence,  according  to  Aristotle ; 
the  great  merit  of  the  orator  consists  in  uniting  them 
with  judgment. 

Great  eloquence  can  scarcely  be  known  to  the  bar 
in  France,  because  it  does  not  conduct  to  honors,  as 
in  Athens,  Rome,  and  at  present  in  London ;  neither 
has  it  great  public  interests  for  its  object;  it  is  con- 
fined to  funeral  orations,  in  which  it  borders  a  little 
upon  poetry. 

Bossuet,  and  after  him  Flechier,  seem  to  have 
obeyed  that  precept  of  Plato,  which  teaches  us  that 
the  elocution  of  an  orator  may  sometimes  be  the 
same  as  that  of  a  poet. 

Pulpit  oratory  had  been  almost  barbarous  until 
P.  Bourdaloue ;  he  was  one  of  the  first  who  caused 
reason  to  be  spoken  there. 

The  English  did  not  arrive  at  that  art  until  a  later 
date,  as  is  avowed  by  Burnet,  bishop  of  Salisbury. 


Dictionary.  203 

They  knew  not  the  funeral  oration ;  they  avoided, 
in  their  sermons,  all  those  vehement  turns  which  ap- 
peared not  to  them  consistent  with  the  simplicity  of 
the  Gospel ;  and  they  were  diffident  of  using  those 
far-fetched  divisions  which  are  condemned  by  Arch- 
bishop Fenelon,  in  his  dialogues  "Sur  l' Eloquence." 

Though  our  sermons  turn  on  the  most  important 
subjects  to  man,  they  supply  few  of  those  striking 
parts  which,  like  the  fine  passages  of  Cicero  and 
Demosthenes,  are  fit  to  become  the  models  of  all  the 
western  nations.  The  reader  will  therefore  be  glad 
to  learn  the  effect  produced  by  M.  Massillon,  since 
bishop  of  Clermont,  the  first  time  that  he  preached 
his  famous  sermon  on  the  small  number  of  the  elect. 
A  kind  of  transport  seized  all  the  audience ;  they 
rose  involuntarily ;  the  murmurs  of  acclamation  and 
surprise  were  so  great  as  to  disturb  the  orator ;  and 
this  confusion  only  served  to  augment  the  pathos  of 
his  discourse.    The  following  is  the  passage : 

"I  will  suppose  that  this  is  our  last  hour,  that  the 
heavens  open  over  our  heads,  that  time  is  past,  and 
that  eternity  commences ;  that  Jesus  Chrjst  is  going 
to  appear  to  judge  us  according  to  our  works,  and 
that  we  are  all  here  to  receive  from  Him  the  sentence 
of  eternal  life  or  death :  I  ask  you,  overwhelmed 
with  terror  like  yourselves,  without  separating  my 
lot  from  your  own,  and  putting  myself  in  the  same 
situation  in  which  we  must  all  one  day  appear  before 
God  our  judge — if  Jesus  Christ  were  now  to  make 
the  terrible  separation  of  the  just  from  the  unjust. 


204  Philosophical 

do  you  believe  that  the  greater  part  would  be  saved  ? 
Do  you  believe  that  the  number  of  the  righteous 
would  be  in  the  least  degree  equal  to  the  number 
of  the  sinners  ?  Do  you  believe  that,  if  He  now  dis- 
cussed the  works  of  the  great  number  who  are  in 
this  church,  He  would  find  ten  righteous  souls 
among  us?    Would  He  find  a  single  one?" 

There  are  several  different  editions  of  this  dis- 
course, but  the  substance  is  the  same  in  all  of  them. 

This  figure,  the  boldest  which  was  ever  em- 
ployed, and  the  best  timed,  is  one  of  the  finest  turns 
of  eloquence  which  can  be  read  either  among  the 
ancients  or  moderns ;  and  the  rest  of  the  discourse 
is  not  unworthy  of  this  brilliant  appeal. 

Preachers  who  cannot  imitate  these  fine  models 
would  do  well  to  learn  them  by  heart,  and  deliver 
them  to  their  congregations — supposing  that  they 
have  the  rare  talent  of  declamation — instead  of 
preaching  to  them,  in  a  languishing  style,  things  as 
common-place  as  they  are  useless. 

It  is  asked,  if  eloquence  be  permitted  to  histo- 
rians? That  which  belongs  to  them  consists  in  the 
art  of  arranging  events,  in  being  always  elegant  in 
their  expositions,  sometimes  lively  and  impressive, 
sometimes  elaborate  and  florid ;  in  being  strong  and 
true  in  their  pictures  of  general  manners  and  prin- 
cipal personages,  and  in  the  reflections  naturally  in- 
corporated with  the  narrative,  so  that  they  should 
not  appear  to  be  obtruded.  The  eloquence  of  De- 
mosthenes belongs  not  to  Thucydides ;    a  studied 


Dictionary.  205 

harangue,  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  hero  who  never 
pronounced  it  is,  in  the  opinion  of  many  enHghtened 
minds,  nothing  more  than  a  splendid  defect. 

If,  however,  these  Hcences  be  permitted,  the  fol- 
lowing is  an  occasion  in  which  Mezeray,  in  his  great 
history,  may  obtain  grace  for  a  boldness  so  approved 
by  the  ancients,  to  whom  he  is  equal,  at  least  on  this 
occasion.  It  is  at  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  IV.,  when  that  prince,  with  very  few  troops, 
was  opposed  near  Dieppe  by  an  army  of  thirty  thou- 
sand men,  and  was  advised  to  retire  into  England, 
Mezeray  excels  himself  in  making  a  speech  for  Mar- 
shal Biron,  who  really  was  a  man  of  genius,  and 
might  have  said  a  part  of  that  which  the  historian 
attributes  to  him: 

"What,  sire,  are  you  advised  to  cross  the  sea,  as 
if  there  was  no  other  way  of  preserving  your  king- 
dom than  by  quitting  it  ?  If  you  were  not  in  France, 
your  friends  would  have  you  run  all  hazards  and 
surmount  all  obstacles  to  get  there ;  and  now  you 
are  here,  they  would  have  you  depart — would  have 
you  voluntarily  do  that  to  which  the  greatest  efforts 
of  your  enemies  ought  not  to  constrain  you !  In 
your  present  state,  to  go  out  of  France  only  for 
four-and-twenty  hours  would  be  to  banish  yourself 
from  it  forever.  As  to  the  danger,  it  is  not  so  great 
as  represented ;  those  who  think  to  overcome  us  are 
either  the  same  whom  we  shut  up  so  easily  in  Paris, 
or  people  who  are  not  much  better,  and  will  rapidly 
have  more  subjects  of  dispute  among  themselves 


2o6  Phiiosophica! 

than  against  us.  In  short,  sire,  we  are  in  France, 
and  we  must  remain  here ;  we  must  show  ourselves 
worthy  of  it ;  we  must  either  conquer  it  or  die  for 
it ;  and  even  when  there  is  no  other  safety  for  your 
sacred  person  than  in  flight,  I  well  know  that  you 
would  a  thousand  times  rather  die  planted  in  the 
soil,  than  save  yourself  by  such  means.  Your  maj- 
esty would  never  suffer  it  to  be  said  that  a  younger 
brother  of  the  house  of  Lorraine  had  made  you  re- 
tire, and,  still  less,  that  you  had  been  seen  to  beg 
at  the  door  of  a  foreign  prince.  No,  no,  sire — there 
is  neither  crown  nor  honor  for  you  across  the  sea ; 
if  you  thus  demand  the  succor  of  England,  it  will 
not  be  granted ;  if  you  present  yourself  at  the  port 
of  Rochelle,  as  a  man  anxious  to  save  himself,  you 
will  only  meet  with  reproaches  and  contempt.  I 
cannot  believe  that  you  would  rather  trust  your  per- 
son to  the  inconstancy  of  the  waves,  or  the  mercy  of 
a  stranger,  than  to  so  many  brave  gentlemen  and 
old  soldiers,  who  are  ready  to  serve  you  as  ramparts 
and  bucklers ;  and  I  am  too  much  devoted  to  your 
majesty  to  conceal  from  you,  that  if  you  seek  your 
safety  elsewhere  than  in  their  virtue,  they  will  be 
obliged  to  seek  theirs  in  a  different  party  from  your 
own." 

This  fine  speech  which  Mezeray  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Marshal  Biron  is  no  doubt  what  Henry 
IV.  felt  in  his  heart. 

Much  more  might  be  said  upon  the  subject ;  but 
the  books  treating  of  eloquence  have  already  said 


Dictionary.  207 

too  much ;  and  in  an  enlightened  age,  genius,  aided 
by  examples,  knows  more  of  it  than  can  be  taught 
by  all  the  masters  in  the  world. 

EMBLEMS. 

FIGURES,    ALLEGORIES,    SYMBOLS,   ETC. 

In  antiquity,  everything  is  emblematical  and  fig- 
urative. The  Chaldaeans  began  with  placing  a  ram, 
two  kids,  and  a  bull  among  the  constellations,  to  in- 
dicate the  productions  of  the  earth  in  spring.  In 
Persia,  fire  is  the  emblem  of  the  divinity ;  the  celes- 
tial dog  gives  notice  to  the  Egyptians  of  the  inunda- 
tions of  the  Nile ;  the  serpent,  concealing  its  tail  in 
its  head,  becomes  the  image  of  eternity.  All  nature 
is  painted  and  disguised. 

There  are  still  to  be  found  in  India  many  of  those 
gigantic  and  terrific  statues  which  we  have  already 
mentioned,  representing  virtue  furnished  with  ten 
arms,  with  which  it  may  successfully  contend 
against  the  vices,  and  which  our  poor  missionaries 
mistook  for  representations  of  the  devil ;  taking  it 
for  granted,  that  all  those  who  did  not  speak  French 
or  Italian  were  worshippers  of  the  devil. 

Show  all  these  symbols  devised  by  antiquity  to  a 
man  of  clear  sense,  but  who  has  never  heard  them 
at  all  mentioned  or  alluded  to,  and  he  will  not  have 
the  slightest  idea  of  their  meaning.  It  would  be  to 
him  a  perfectly  new  language. 

The  ancient  poetical  theologians  were  under  the 


2o8  Philosophical 

necessity  of  ascribing  to  the  deity  eyes,  hands,  and 
feet;   of  describing  him  under  the  figure  of  a  man. 

St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  quotes  verses  from 
Xenophanes  the  Colophonian,  which  state  that  every 
species  of  animal  supplies  metaphor  to  aid  the  imagi- 
nation in  its  ideas  of  the  deity — the  wings  of  the 
bird,  the  speed  of  the  horse,  and  the  strength  of  the 
lion.  It  is  evident,  from  these  verses  of  Xenophanes, 
that  it  is  by  no  means  a  practice  of  recent  date  for 
men  to  represent  God  after  their  own  image.  The 
ancient  Thracian  Orpheus,  the  first  theologian 
among  the  Greeks,  who  lived  long  before  Homer, 
according  to  the  same  Clement  of  Alexandria,  de- 
scribes God  as  seated  upon  the  clouds,  and  tranquilly 
ruling  the  whirlwind  and  the  storm.  His  feet  reach 
the  earth,  and  His  hands  extend  from  one  ocean  to 
the  other.  He  is  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of 
all  things. 

Everything  being  thus  represented  by  figure  and 
emblem,  philosophers,  and  particularly  those  among 
them  who  travelled  to  India,  employed  the  same 
method ;  their  precepts  were  emblems,  were  enig- 
mas. 

"Stir  not  the  fire  with  a  sword :"  that  is,  aggra- 
vate not  men  who  are  angry. 

"Place  not  a  lamp  under  a  bushel:"  conceal  not 
the  truth  from  men. 

"Abstain  from  beans :"  frequent  not  popular  as- 
semblies, in  which  votes  were  given  by  white  or 
black  beans. 


Dictionary.  209 

"Have  no  swallows  about  your  house:"  keep 
away  babblers. 

"During  a  tempest,  worship  the  echo :"  while 
civil  broils  endure,  withdraw  into  retirement. 

"Never  write  on  snow:"  throw  not  away  in- 
struction upon  weak  and  imbecile  minds. 

"Never  devour  either  your  heart  or  your  brains  :'' 
never  give  yourself  up  to  useless  anxiety  or  intense 
study. 

Such  are  the  maxims  of  Pythagoras,  the  meaning 
of  which  is  sufficiently  obvious. 

The  most  beautiful  of  all  emblems  is  that  of  God, 
whom  Timseus  of  Locris  describes  under  the  image 
of  "A  circle  whose  centre  is  everywhere  and  circum- 
ference nowhere."  Plato  adopted  this  emblem,  and 
Pascal  inserted  it  among  his  materials  for  future 
use,  which  he  entitled  his  "Thoughts." 

In  metaphysics  and  in  morals,  the  ancients  have 
said  everjlihing.  We  always  encounter  or  repeat 
them.  All  modern  books  of  this  description  are 
merely  repetitions. 

The  farther  we  advance  eastward,  the  more  prev- 
alent and  established  we  find  the  employment  of  em- 
blems and  figures  :  but,  at  the  same  time,  the  images 
in  use  are  more  remote  from  our  own  manners  and 
customs. 

The  emblems  which  appear  most  singular  to  us 

are  those  which  were  in  frequent  if  not  in  sacred  use 

among  the  Indians,  Egyptians,  and  Syrians.    These 

people  bore  aloft  in  their  solemn  processions,  and 
Vol.  8—14 


2IO  Philosophical 

with  the  most  profound  respect,  the  appropriate  or- 
gans for  the  perpetuation  of  the  species — the  sym- 
bols of  life.  We  smile  at  such  practices,  and  con- 
sider these  people  as  simple  barbarians.  What 
would  they  have  said  on  seeing  us  enter  our  temples 
wearing  at  our  sides  the  weapons  of  destruction  ? 

At  Thebes,  the  sins  of  the  people  were  repre- 
sented by  a  goat.  On  the  coast  of  Phoenicia,  a  naked 
woman  with  the  lower  part  of  her  body  like  that  of 
a  fish  was  the  emblem  of  nature. 

We  cannot  be  at  all  surprised  if  this  employment 
of  symbols  extended  to  the  Hebrews,  as  they  consti- 
tuted a  people  near  the  Desert  of  Syria. 

Of  Some  Emblems  Used  by  the  Jewish  Nation. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  emblems  in  the  Jewish 
books,  is  the  following  exquisite  passage  in  Ec- 
clesiastes : 

"When  the  grinders  shall  cease  because  they  are 
few ;  when  those  that  look  out  of  the  windows  shall 
be  darkened ;  when  the  almond  tree  shall  flourish ; 
when  the  grasshopper  shall  become  a  burden ;  when 
desire  shall  fail ;  the  silver  cord  be  loosed ;  the 
golden  bowl  be  fractured ;  and  the  pitcher  broken 
at  the  fountain." 

The  meaning  is,  that  the  aged  lose  their  teeth ; 
that  their  sight  becomes  impaired ;  that  their  hair 
becomes  white,  like  the  blossom  of  the  almond  tree ; 
that  their  feet  become  like  the  grasshopper ;  that 
their  hair  drops  off  like  the  leaves  of  the  fir  tree; 


Dictionary^  2il 

that  they  have  lost  the  power  of  communicating  life  ; 
and  that  it  is  time  for  them  to  prepare  for  their  long 
journey. 

The  "Song  of  Songs,"  as  is  well  known,  is  a  con- 
tinued emblem  of  the  marriage  of  Jesus  Christ  with 
the  church. 

"Let  him  kiss  me  with  a  kiss  of  his  mouth,  for 
thy  breasts  are  better  than  wine.  Let  him  put  his 
left  hand  under  my  head,  and  embrace  me  with  his 
right  hand.  How  beautiful  art  thou,  my  love :  thy 
eyes  are  like  those  of  the  dove ;  thy  hair  is  as  a  flock 
of  goats ;  thy  lips  are  like  a  ribbon  of  scarlet,  and 
thy  cheeks  like  pomegranates;  how  beautiful  is  thy 
neck !  how  thy  lips  drop  honey !  my  beloved  put  in 
his  hand  by  the  hole  of  the  door,  and  my  bowels 
were  moved  for  him ;  thy  navel  is  like  a  round  gob- 
let ;  thy  belly  is  like  a  heap  of  wheat  set  about  with 
lilies ;  thy  two  breasts  are  like  two  young  roes  that 
are  twins ;  thy  neck  is  like  a  tower  of  ivory ;  thy 
nose  is  as  the  tower  of  Lebanon ;  thy  head  is  like 
Mount  Carmel ;  thy  stature  is  that  of  a  palm  tree. 
I  said.  I  will  ascend  the  palm  tree  and  will  gather  of 
its  fruits.  \Vliat  shall  we  do  for  our  little  sister? 
she  has  no  breasts.  If  she  be  a  wall,  we  will  build 
upon  her  a  tower  of  silver ;  if  she  be  a  door,  we  will 
enclose  her  with  boards  of  cedar." 

It  would  be  necessary  to  translate  the  whole  can- 
ticle, in  order  to  see  that  it  is  an  emblem  from  be- 
ginning to  end.  The  ingenious  Calmet.  in  particu- 
lar, demonstrates  that  the  palm  tree  which  the  lover 


212  Philosophical 

ascended  is  the  cross  to  which  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
was  condemned.  It  must  however  be  confessed, 
that  sound  and  pure  moral  doctrine  is  preferable  to 
these  allegories. 

We  find  in  the  books  of  this  people  a  great  num- 
ber of  emblems  and  types  which  shock  at  the  present 
da}',  and  excite  at  once  our  incredulity  and  ridicule, 
but  which,  to  the  Asiatics,  appear  clear,  natural,  and 
unexceptionable. 

God  appeared  to  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amos,  and 
said  to  him,  "Go  take  thy  girdle  from  thy  loins  and 
thy  shoes  from  thy  feet,"  and  he  did  so,  walking 
naked  and  barefoot.  And  the  Lord  said,  "Like  as  my 
servant  Isaiah  hath  walked  naked  and  barefoot  for 
three  years  for  a  sign  upon  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  so 
shall  the  king  of  Assyria  lead  away  the  Egyptian 
and  Ethiopian  prisoners,  young  and  old,  naked  and 
barefoot,  with  their  hind  parts  uncovered,  to  the 
shame  of  Egypt." 

This  appears  to  us  exceedingly  strange :  but  let 
us  inform  ourselves  a  little  about  what  is  passing  in 
our  own  times  among  Turks,  and  Africans,  and  in 
India,  where  we  go  to  trade  with  so  much  avidity 
and  so  little  success.  We  shall  learn  that  it  is  by  no 
means  unusual  to  see  the  santons  there  absolutely 
naked,  and  not  only  in  that  state  preaching  to 
women,  but  permitting  them  to  salute  particular 
parts  of  their  body,  yet  neither  indulging  or  inspir- 
ing the  slightest  portion  of  licentious  or  unchaste 
feeling.     We  shall  see  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges 


Dictionary.  213 

an  innumerable  company  both  of  men  and  women 
naked  from  head  to  foot,  extending  their  arms  to- 
wards heaven,  and  waiting  for  the  moment  of  an 
eclipse  to  plunge  into  the  riven  The  citizens  of 
Paris  and  Rome  should  not  be  too  ready  to  think 
all  the  rest  of  the  world  bound  down  to  the  same 
modes  of  living  and  thinking  as  themselves. 

Jeremiah,  who  prophesied  in  the  reign  of  Jehoia- 
kim,  king  of  Jerusalem,  in  favor  of  the  king  of 
Babylon,  puts  chains  and  cords  about  his  neck,  by 
order  of  the  Lord,  and  sends  them  to  the  kings  of 
Edom,  Ammon,  Tyre  and  Sidon,  by  their  ambassa- 
dors W'ho  had  been  sent  to  Zedekiah  at  Jerusalem. 
He  commands  them  to  address  their  master  in  these 
words : 

"Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts  the  God  of  Israel, 
thus  shall  ye  say  unto  your  masters :  I  have  made 
the  earth,  the  men,  and  the  beasts  of  burden  which 
are  upon  the  ground,  by  my  great  power  and  by  my 
outstretched  arm,  and  have  given  it  unto  whom  it 
seemed  good  unto  me.  And  now  have  I  given  all 
these  lands  into  the  hands  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  the 
king  of  Babylon,  my  servant,  and  all  the  beasts  of 
the  field  have  I  given  him  besides,  that  they  may 
serve  him.  I  spake  also  all  these  words  to  Zedekiah, 
king  of  Judah,  saying  unto  him,  submit  your  neck 
to  the  yoke  of  the  king  of  Babylon,  serve  him,  him 
and  his  people,  and  you  shall  live,"  etc. 

Accordingly,  Jeremiah  was  accused  of  betraying 
his  king,  and  of  prophesying  in  favor  of  the  enemy 


214  Philosophical 

for  the  sake  of  money.  It  has  even  been  asserted 
that  he  was  stoned.  It  is  clear  that  the  cords  and 
chains  were  the  emblem  of  that  servitude  to  which 
Jeremiah  was  desirous  that  the  nation  should  sub- 
mit. 

In  a  similar  manner  we  are  told  by  Herodotus, 
that  one  of  the  kings  of  Scythia  sent  Darius  a  pres- 
ent of  a  bird,  a  mouse,  a  frog,  and  five  arrows.  This 
emblem  implied  that,  if  Darius  did  not  fly  as  fast  as 
a  bird,  a  mouse,  or  a  frog,  he  would  be  pierced  by 
the  arrows  of  the  Scythians.  The  allegory  of  Jere- 
miah was  that  of  weakness ;  the  emblem  of  the 
Scythians  was  that  of  courage. 

Thus,  also,  when  Sextus  Tarquinius  consulted 
his  father,  whom  we  call  Tarquinius  Superbus, 
about  the  policy  he  should  adopt  to  the  Gabii,  Tar- 
quin,  who  was  walking  in  his  garden,  answered  only 
by  striking  ofif  the  heads  of  the  tallest  poppies.  His 
son  caught  his  meaning,  and  put  to  death  the  prin- 
cipal citizens  among  them.  This  was  the  emblem 
of  tyranny. 

Many  learned  men  have  been  of  opinion  that  the 
history  of  Daniel,  of  the  dragon,  of  the  den  of  seven 
lions  who  devoured  every  day  two  sheep  and  two 
men,  and  the  history  of  the  angel  who  transported 
Habakkuk  by  the  hair  of  his  head  to  dine  with 
Daniel  in  the  lion's  den,  are  nothing  more  than  a 
visible  allegory,  an  emblem  of  the  continual  vigi- 
lance with  which  God  watches  over  his  servants. 
But  it  seems  to  us  a  proof  of  greater  piety  to  belifv£ 


Dictionary.  215 

that  it  is  a  real  history,  Uke  many  we  find  in  the 
Sacred  Scriptures,  displaying  without  figure  and 
type  the  divine  power,  and  which  profane  minds  are 
not  permitted  to  explore.  Let  us  consider  those 
only  as  genuine  emblems  and  allegories,  which  are 
indicated  to  us  as  such  by  Holy  Scripture  itself. 

"In  the  thirteenth  year  and  the  fifteenth  day  of 
the  fourth  month,  as  I  was  in  the  midst  of  the  cap- 
tives on  the  banks  of  the  river  Chobar,  the  heavens 
were  opened,  and  I  saw  the  visions  of  God,"  etc. 
"The  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  Ezekiel  the  priest, 
the  son  of  Buzi,  in  the  land  of  the  Chaldseans  by  the 
river  Chobar,  and  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  upon 
him." 

It  is  thus  that  Ezekiel  begins  his  prophecy ;  and, 
after  having  seen  a  fire  and  a  whirhvind,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  fire  four  living  animals  resembling  a 
man,  having  four  faces  and  four  wings  with  feet  re- 
sembling those  of  calves,  and  a  wheel  which  was 
upon  the  earth,  and  which  had  four  parts,  the  four 
parts  of  the  wheel  going  at  the  same  time,  etc. 

He  goes  on  to  say,  "The  spirit  entered  into  me, 

and  placed  me  firm  upon  my  feet Then  the 

Lord  said  unto  me :  'Son  of  man,  eat  that  thou  find- 
est ;  eat  this  book,  and  go  and  speak  to  the  children 
of  Israel.'  So  I  opened  my  mouth,  and  He  caused 
me  to  eat  that  book.  And  the  spirit  entered  into  me 
and  made  me  stand  upon  my  feet.  And  he  said 
unto  me :  'Go  and  shut  thyself  up  in  the  midst  of 
thv  house.     Son  of  man.  these  are  the  chains  with 


2 1 6  Philosophical 

which  thou  shall  set  thy  face  firm  against  it;  thou 
shalt  be  bound,'  "  etc.  "  'And  thou,  son  of  man,  take 
a  tile  and  place  it  before  thee  and  portray  thereon 
the  city  of  Jerusalem.'  " 

"  'Take  also  a  pan  of  iron,  and  thou  shalt  place 
it  as  a  wall  of  iron  between  thee  and  the  city ;  thou 
shalt  be  before  Jerusalem  as  if  thou  didst  besiege 
it ;   it  is  a  sign  to  the  house  of  Israel.'  " 

After  this  command  God  orders  him  to  sleep 
three  hundred  and  ninety  days  on  his  left  side,  on 
account  of  the  iniquities  of  the  house  of  Judah. 

Before  we  go  further  we  will  transcribe  the 
words  of  that  judicious  commentator  Calmet,on  this 
part  of  Ezekiel's  prophecy,  which  is  at  once  a  his- 
tory and  an  allegory,  a  real  truth  and  an  emblem. 
These  are  the  remarks  of  that  learned  Benedictine : 

"There  are  some  who  think  that  the  whole  of 
this  occurred  merely  in  vision ;  that  a  man  cannot 
continue  lying  so  long  on  the  same  side  without  a 
miracle ;  that,  as  the  Scripture  gives  us  no  intima- 
tion that  this  is  a  prodigy,  we  ought  not  to  multiply 
miraculous  acts  without  necessity;  that,  if  the 
prophet  continued  lying  in  that  manner  for  three 
hundred  and  ninety  days,  it  was  only  during  the 
nights ;  in  the  day  he  was  at  liberty  to  attend  to  his 
affairs.  But  we  do  not  see  any  necessity  for  recur- 
ring to  a  miracle,  nor  for  any  circuitous  explanation 
of  the  case  here  stated.  It  is  by  no  means  impos- 
sible for  a  man  to  continue  chained  and  lying  on 
his  side  for  three  hundred  and  ninety  days.     We 


Dictionary.  217 

have  every  day  before  us  cases  which  prove  the  pos- 
sibility among  prisoners,  sick  persons,  and  persons 
deranged  and  chained  in  a  state  of  raving  madness. 
Prado  testifies  that  he  saw  a  mad  person  who  con- 
tinued bound  and  lying  quite  naked  on  his  side  up- 
wards of  fifteen  years.  If  all  this  had  occurred  only 
in  vision,  how  could  the  Jews  of  the  captivity  have 
comprehended  what  Ezekiel  meant  to  say  to  them? 
How  would  that  prophet  have  been  able  to  execute 
the  divine  commands  ?  We  must  in  that  case  admit 
likewise  that  he  did  not  prepare  the  plan  of  Jerusa- 
lem, that  he  did  not  represent  the  siege,  that  he  was 
not  bound,  that  he  did  not  eat  the  bread  of  different 
kinds  of  grain  in  any  other  than  the  same  way; 
namely,  that  of  vision,  or  ideally." 

We  cannot  but  adopt  the  opinion  of  the  learned 
Calmet,  which  is  that  of  the  most  respectable  inter- 
preters. It  is  evident  that  the  Holy  Scripture  re- 
counts the  matter  as  a  real  truth,  and  that  such  truth 
is  the  emblem,  type,  and  figure  of  another  truth. 

"Take  unto  thee  wheat  and  barley,  and  beans  and 
lentils,  and  millet  and  vetches,  and  make  cakes  of 
them  for  as  many  days  as  thou  art  to  sleep  on  thy 
side.  Thou  shalt  eat  for  three  hundred  and  ninety 
days  ....  thou  shalt  eat  it  as  barley  cakes,  and 
thou  shalt  cover  it  with  human  ordure.  Thus  shall 
the  children  of  Israel  eat  their  bread  defiled." 

It  is  evident  that  the  Lord  was  desirous  that  the 
Israelites  should  eat  their  bread  defiled.  It  follows 
therefore  that  the  bread  of  the  prophet  must  have 


2 1 8  Philosophical 

been  defiled  also.  This  defilement  was  so  real  that 
Ezekiel  expressed  actual  horror  at  it.  "Alas !''  he 
exclaimed,  "my  life  (my  soul)  has  not  hitherto  been 
polluted,"  etc.  And  the  Lord  says  to  him,  "I  allow 
thee,  then,  cow's  dung  instead  of  man's,  and  with 
that  shalt  thou  prepare  thy  bread." 

It  appears,  therefore,  to  have  been  absolutely  es- 
sential that  the  food  should  be  defiled  in  order  to  its 
becoming  an  emblem  or  type.  The  prophet  in  fact 
put  cow-dung  with  his  bread  for  three  hundred  and 
ninety  days,  and  the  case  includes  at  once  a  fact  and 
a  symbol. 

Of  the  Emblem  of  Aholah  and  Aholibah. 

The  Holy  Scripture  expressly  declares  that  Aho- 
lah is  the  emblem  of  Jerusalem.  "Son  of  man,  cause 
Jerusalem  to  know  her  abominations ;  thy  father 
was  an  Amorite,  and  thy  mother  was  a  Hittite." 
The  prophet  then,  without  any  apprehension  of 
malignant  interpretations  or  wanton  railleries,  ad- 
dresses the  young  Aholah  in  the  following  words  : 

"Ubem  tua  infiimuerimt,  et  piliis  tuus  ger- 
minaznt;  et  eras  niida  et  confnsionc  plena." — "Thy 
breasts  were  fashioned,  and  thy  hair  was  grown,  and 
thou  wast  naked  and  confused." 

"£^  transivi  per  te;  et  ecce  temptis  tuum,  tempus 
umantium;  et  expandi  amictum  meiun  super  te  et 
op  end  ignominiam  tuam.  Et  jiiravi  tibi,  et  ingres- 
siis  sum  pactum  tecum  {ait  Dominus  Dens),  et  facta 
es  mihi." — "I  passed  by  and  saw  thee;  and  saw  thy 
time  was  come,  thy  time  for  lovers ;    and  I  spread 


Dictionary.  219 

my  mantle  over  thee  and  concealed  thy  shame.  And 
I  swore  to  thee,  and  entered  into  a  contract  with 
thee,  and  thou  becamest  mine." 

"Et  habens  Hduciani  in  pulchritudinc  tua  forni- 
cata  es  in  nomine  tuo;  et  exposuisti  fornicationem 
tiiam  otnni  transeunti,  ut  ejus  Heres." — "And,  proud 
of  thy  beauty,  thou  didst  commit  fornication  without 
disguise,  and  hast  exposed  thy  fornication  to  every 
passerby,  to  become  his." 

'^Et  (udificavissti  tibi  lupanar,  et  fecisti  tibi  pros- 
tibulum  in  ciinctis  plateis." — "And  thou  hast  built 
a  high  place  for  thyself,  and  a  place  of  eminence  in 
every  public  way." 

''Et  divisisti  pedes  tuos  omni  transeunti,  et  inulti- 
plicasti  fornicationes  tuas." — "And  thou  hast  opened 
thy  feet  to  every  passerby,  and  hast  multiplied  thy 
fornications." 

"Et  fornicata  es  cum  Uliis  Egypti  zncinis  tuis, 
magnarum  carniuui;  et  multiplicasti  fornicationem 
tuam  ad  irritanduni  me." — "And  thou  hast  com- 
mitted fornication  with  the  Egyptians  thy  neigh- 
bors, powerful  in  the  flesh ;  and  thou  hast  multiplied 
thy  fornication  to  provoke  me." 

The  article  of  Aholibah,  which  signifies  Samaria, 
is  much  stronger  and  still  further  removed  from  the 
propriety  and  decorum  of  modern  manners  and  lan- 
guage. 

"Denudavit  quoque  fornicationes  snas,  discoope- 
riiit  ignominiam  suam." — "And  she  has  made  bare 
her  fornications  and  discovered  her  shame." 


220  Philosophical 

"Multiplicavit  enim  fornicationes  suas,  recordans 
dies  adolescentice  sucf." — "For  she  has  multiplied 
her  fornications,  remembering  the  days  of  her 
youth." 

"Et  insanh'it  libidine  super  concubifnm  eorum 
carnes  sunt  tit  carnes  asinorum,  et  sicut  fliixns 
cquorum,  fluxus  eorum." — "And  she  has  maddened 
for  the  embraces  of  those  whose  flesh  is  as  the  flesh 
of  asses,  and  whose  issue  is  as  the  issue  of  horses." 

These  images  strike  us  as  licentious  and  revolting. 
They  were  at  that  time  simply  plain  and  ingenuous. 
There  are  numerous  instances  of  the  like  in  the 
"Song  of  Songs,"  intended  to  celebrate  the  purest 
of  all  possible  unions.  It  must  be  attentively  con- 
sidered that  these  expressions  and  images  are 
always  delivered  with  seriousness  and  gravity,  and 
that  in  no  book  of  equally  high  antiquity  is  the 
slightest  jeering  or  raillery  ever  applied  to  the  great 
subject  of  human  production.  When  dissoluteness 
is  condemned,  it  is  so  in  natural  and  undisguised 
terms,  but  such  are  never  used  to  stimulate  volup- 
tuousness or  pleasantry. 

This  high  antiquity  has  not  the  slightest  touch  of 
similarity  to  the  licentiousness  of  Martial,  Catullus, 
or  Petronius. 

Of  Hosea,  and  Some  Other  Emblems. 

We  cannot  regard  as  a  mere  vision,  as  simply 
a  figure,  the  positive  command  given  by  the  Lord  to 
Hosea  to  take  to  himself  a  wife  of  whoredoms  and 


Dictionary.  Q.2 1 

have  by  her  three  children.  Children  are  not  pro- 
duced in  a  dream.  It  is  not  in  a  vision  that  he 
made  a  contract  with  Gomer,  the  daughter  of 
Diblaim,  by  whom  he  had  two  boys  and  a  girl.  It 
was  not  in  a  vision  that  he  afterwards  took  to  him- 
self an  adulteress  by  the  express  order  of  the  Lord, 
giving  her  fifteen  pieces  of  silver  and  a  measure  and 
a  half  of  barley. 

The  first  of  these  disgraced  women  signified 
Jerusalem  and  the  second  Samaria.  But  the  two 
unions  with  these  worthless  persons,  the  three  chil- 
dren, the  fifteen  pieces  of  silver,  and  the  bushel  and 
a  half  of  barley,  were  not  the  less  real  for  having 
included  or  been  intended  as  an  emblem. 

It  was  not  in  a  vision  that  the  patriarch  Salmon 
married  the  harlot  Rahab,  the  grandmother  of 
David.  It  was  not  in  a  vision  that  Judah  committed 
incest  with  his  daughter-in-law  Thamar,  from  which 
incest  sprang  David.  It  was  not  in  a  vision  that 
Ruth,  David's  other  grandmother,  placed  herself  in 
the  bed  with  Boaz.  It  was  not  in  a  vision  that 
David  murdered  Uriah  and  committed  adultery  with 
Bathsheba,  of  whom  was  born  King  Solomon.  But, 
subsequently,  all  these  events  became  emblems  and 
figures,  after  the  things  which  they  typified  were 
accomplished. 

It  is  perfectly  clear,  from  Ezekiel,  Hosea,  Jere- 
miah, and  all  the  Jewish  prophets,  and  all  the  Jewish 
books,  as  well  as  from  all  other  books  which  give  us 
any  information  concerning  the  usages  of  the  Chal- 


222  Philosophical 

dasans,  Persians,  Phoenicians,  Syrians,  Indians,  and 
Egyptians ;  it  is,  I  say,  perfectly  clear  that  their 
manners  were  ver}^  different  from  ours,  and  that  the 
ancient  world  was  scarcely  in  a  single  point  similar 
to  the  modern  one. 

Pass  from  Gibraltar  to  Mequinez,  and  the  de- 
cencies and  decorums  of  life  are  no  longer  the  same  ; 
you  no  longer  find  the  same  ideas.  Two  sea  leagues 
have  changed  everything. 

ENCHANTMENT. 

MAGIC,  CONJURATION,  SORCERY,  ETC, 

It  is  not  in  the  smallest  degree  probable  that  all 
those  abominable  absurdities  are  owing,  as  Pluche 
would  have  us  believe,  to  the  foliage  with  which  the 
heads  of  Isis  and  Osiris  were  formerly  crowned. 
What  connection  can  this  foliage  have  with  the  art 
of  charming  serpents,  with  that  of  resuscitating  the 
dead,  killing  men  by  mere  words,  inspiring  persons 
with  love,  or  changing  men  into  beasts  ? 

Enchantment  (incautatio)  comes,  say  some,  from 
a  Chaldee  word,  which  the  Greeks  translate  "pro- 
ductive song."  Incautatio  comes  from  the  Chaldee. 
Truly,  the  Bocharts  are  great  travellers  and  proceed 
from  Italy  to  Mesopotamia  in  a  twinkling!  The 
great  and  learned  Hebrew  nation  is  rapidly  ex- 
plored, and  all  sorts  of  books,  and  all  sorts  of 
usages,  are  the  fruits  of  the  journey ;  the  Bocharts 
are  certainly  not  charlatans. 

Is  not  a  large  portion  of  the  absurd  supersti- 


Dictionary.  223 

tions  which  have  prevailed  to  be  ascribed  to  very 
natural  causes  ?  There  are  scarcely  any  animals  that 
may  not  be  accustomed  to  approach  at  the  sound  of 
a  bagpipe,  or  a  single  horn,  to  take  their  food. 
Orpheus,  or  some  one  of  his  predecessors,  played 
the  bagpipe  better  than  other  shepherds,  or  em- 
ployed singing.  All  the  domestic  animals  flocked 
together  at  the  sound  of  his  voice.  It  was  soon  sup- 
posed that  bears  and  tigers  were  among  the  number 
collected ;  this  first  step  accomplished,  there  was  no 
difficulty  in  believing  that  Orpheus  made  stones  and 
trees  dance. 

If  rocks  and  pine-trees  can  be  thus  made  to  dance 
a  ballet,  it  will  cost  little  more  to  build  cities  by 
harmony,  and  the  stones  will  easily  arrange  them- 
selves at  Amphion's  song.  A  violin  only  will  be 
wanted  to  build  a  city,  and  a  ram's  horn  to  de- 
stroy it. 

The  charming  of  serpents  may  be  attributed  to  a 
still  more  plausible  cause.  The  serpent  is  neither  a 
voracious  nor  a  ferocious  animal.  Every  reptile  is 
timid.  The  first  thing  a  reptile  does,  at  least  in 
Europe,  on  seeing  a  man,  is  to  hide  itself  in  a  hole, 
like  a  rabbit  or  a  lizard.  The  instinct  of  a  man  is 
to  pursue  everything  that  flies  from  him,  and  to 
fly  from  all  that  pursue  him,  except  when  he  is 
armed,  when  he  feels  his  strength,  and,  above  all, 
when  he  is  in  the  presence  of  many  observers. 

The  serpent,  far  from  being  greedy  of  blood  and 
flesh,  feeds  only  upon  herbs,  and  passes  a  consider- 


224  Philosophical 

able  time  without  eating  at  all ;  if  he  swallows  a  few 
insects,  as  lizards  and  chameleons  do,  he  does  us  a 
service. 

All  travellers  relate  that  there  are  some  very  large 
and  long  ones ;  although  we  know  of  none  such  in 
Europe.  No  man  or  child  was  ever  attacked  there 
by  a  large  serpent  or  a  small  one.  Animals  attack 
only  what  they  want  to  eat;  and  dogs  never  bite 
passengers  but  in  defence  of  their  masters.  What 
could  a  serpent  do  with  a  little  infant?  What 
pleasure  could  it  derive  from  biting  it?  It  could 
not  swallow  even  the  fingers.  Serpents  do  certainly 
bite,  and  squirrels  also,  but  only  when  they  are  in- 
jured, or  are  fearful  of  being  so. 

I  am  not  unwilling  to  believe  that  there  have  been 
monsters  among  serpents  as  well  as  among  men.  I 
will  admit  that  the  army  of  Regulus  was  put  under 
arms  in  Africa  against  a  dragon ;  and  that  there  has 
since  been  a  Norman  there  who  fought  against  the 
waterspout.  But  it  will  be  granted,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  such  cases  are  exceedingly  rare. 

The  two  serpents  that  came  from  Tenedos  for 
the  express  purpose  of  devouring  Laocoon,  and  two 
great  lads  twenty  years  of  age,  in  the  presence  of  the 
whole  Trojan  army,  form  a  very  fine  prodigy,  and 
one  worthy  of  being  transmitted  to  posterity  by 
hexameter  verses,  and  by  statues  which  represent 
Laocoon  like  a  giant,  and  his  stout  boys  as  pygmies. 

I  conceive  this  event  to  have  happened  in  those 
times  when  a  prodigious  wooden  horse  took  cities 


Dictionary.  225 

which  had  been  built  by  the  gods,  when  rivers 
flowed  backward  to  their  fountains,  when  waters 
were  changed  to  blood,  and  both  sun  and  moon  stood 
still  on  the  slightest  possible  occasion. 

Everything  that  has  been  related  about  serpents 
was  considered  probable  in  countries  in  which 
Apollo  came  down  from  heaven  to  slay  the  serpent 
Python. 

Serpents  were  also  supposed  to  be  exceedingly 
sensible  animals.  Their  sense  consists  in  not  run- 
ning so  fast  as  we  do,  and  in  suffering  themselves 
to  be  cut  in  pieces. 

The  bite  of  serpents,  and  particularly  of  vipers,  is 
not  dangerous,  except  when  irritation  has  produced 
the  fermentation  of  a  small  reservoir  of  very  acid 
humor  which  they  have  under  their  gums.  With 
this  exception,  a  serpent  is  no  more  dangerous  than 
an  eel. 

Many  ladies  have  tamed  and  fed  serpents,  placed 
them  on  their  toilets,  and  wreathed  them  about  their 
arms.  The  negroes  of  Guinea  worship  a  serpent 
which  never  injures  any  one. 

There  are  many  species  of  those  reptiles,  and 
some  are  more  dangerous  than  others  in  hot  coun- 
tries ;  but  in  general,  serpents  are  timid  and  mild 
animals ;  it  is  not  uncommon  to  see  them  sucking 
the  udder  of  a  cow. 

Those  who  first  saw  men  more  daring  than  them- 
selves domesticate  and  feed  serpents,  inducing  them 
to  come  to  them  bv  a  hissing  sound  in  a  similar  way 

Vol.  8--15 


226  Philosophical 

to  that  by  which  we  induce  the  approach  of  bees, 
considered  them  as  possessing  the  power  of  enchant- 
ment. The  Psilli  and  Marsae,  who  familiarly  han- 
dled and  fondled  serpents,  had  a  similar  reputation. 
The  apothecaries  of  Poitou,  who  take  up  vipers  by 
the  tail,  might  also,  if  they  chose,  be  respected  as 
magicians  of  the  first  order. 

The  charming  of  serpents  was  considered  as  a 
thing  regular  and  constant.  The  Sacred  Scripture 
itself,  which  always  enters  into  our  weaknesses, 
deigned  to  conform  itself  to  this  vulgar  idea. 

"The  deaf  adder,  which  shuts  its  ears  that  it  may 
not  hear  the  voice  of  the  charmer." 

"T  will  send  among  you  serpents  which  will  resist 
enchantments." 

"The  slanderer  is  like  the  serpent,  which  yields 
not  to  the  enchanter." 

The  enchantment  was  sometimes  so  powerful  as 
to  make  serpents  burst  asunder.  The  natural  phi- 
losophy of  antiquity  made  this  animal  immortal.  If 
any  rustic  found  a  dead  serpent  in  his  road,  some  en- 
chanter must  inevitably  have  deprived  it  of  its  right 
to  immortality : 

Frigidus  in  pratis  cantando  ric7?ipitur  atignis. 

— ViRG.  Eclogue  viii.  71. 
Verse  breaks  the  ground,  and  penetrates  the  brake, 
And  in  the  winding  cavern  splits  the  snake. 

— Dryden. 

Enchantment  of  the  Dead,  or  Evocation. 

To  enchant  a  dead  person,  to  resuscitate  him,  or 

barely  to  evoke  his  shade  to  speak  to  him,  was  the 


Dictionary.  227 

most  simple  thing  in  the  world.  It  is  very  common 
to  see  the  dead  in  dreams,  in  which  they  are  spoken 
to  and  return  answers.  If  any  one  has  seen  them 
during  sleep,  why  may  he  not  see  them  when  he  is 
awake?  It  is  only  necessary  to  have  a  spirit  like 
the  pythoness  ;  and,  to  bring  this  spirit  of  python- 
ism  into  successful  operation  it  is  only  necessary 
that  one  party  should  be  a  knave  and  the  other  a 
fool ;  and  no  one  can  deny  that  such  rencontres  very 
frequently  occur. 

The  evocation  of  the  dead  was  one  of  the  sub- 
limest  mysteries  of  magic.  Sometimes  there  was 
made  to  pass  before  the  eyes  of  the  inquiring 
devotee  a  large,  black  figure,  moved  by  secret  springs 
in  dimness  and  obscurity.  Sometimes  the  per- 
formers, whether  sorcerers  or  witches,  limited  them- 
selves to  declaring  that  they  saw  the  shade  which 
was  desired  to  be  evoked,  and  their  word  was  suffi- 
cient ;  this  was  called  necromancy.  The  famous 
witch  of  Endor  has  always  been  a  subject  of  great 
dispute  among  the  fathers  of  the  Church.  The  sage 
Theodoret,  in  his  sixty-second  question  on  the 
Book  of  Kings,  asserts  that  it  is  universally  the 
practice  for  the  dead  to  appear  with  the  head  down- 
wards, and  that  what  terrified  the  witch  was  Sam- 
uel's being  upon  his  legs. 

St.  Augustine,  when  interrogated  by  Simplicion, 
replies,  in  the  second  book  of  his  "Questions,"  that 
there  is  nothing  more  extraordinary  in  a  witch's  in- 
voking  a   shade   than    in   the   devil's   transporting 


228  Philosophical 

Jesus  Christ  through  the  air  to  the  pinnacle  of  the 
temple  on  the  top  of  a  mountain. 

Some  learned  men,  observing  that  there  were 
oracular  spirits  among  the  Jews,  have  ventured  to 
conclude  that  the  Jews  began  to  write  only  at  a  late 
period,  and  that  they  built  almost  everything  upon 
Greek  fable ;  but  this  opinion  cannot  be  maintained. 

Of  Other  Sorceries. 

When  a  man  is  sufficiently  expert  to  evoke  the 
dead  by  words,  he  may  yet  more  easily  destroy  the 
living,  or  at  least  threaten  them  with  doing  so,  as 
the  physician,  malgre  lui,  told  Lucas  that  he  would 
give  him  a  fever.  At  all  events,  it  was  not  in  the 
slightest  degree  doubtful  that  sorcerers  had  the 
power  of  kilHng  beasts ;  and,  to  insure  the  stock  of 
cattle,  it  was  necessary  to  oppose  sorcery  to  sorcery. 
But  the  ancients  can  with  little  propriety  be  laughed 
at  by  us,  who  are  ourselves  scarcely  even  yet  extri- 
cated from  the  same  barbarism.  A  hundred  years 
have  not  yet  expired  since  sorcerers  were  burned  all 
over  Europe;  and  even  as  recently  as  1750,  a  sor- 
ceress, or  witch,  was  burned  at  Wiirzburg.  It  is 
unquestionable  that  certain  words  and  ceremonies 
will  effectually  destroy  a  flock  of  sheep,  if  admin- 
istered with  a  sufficient  portion  of  arsenic. 

The  "Critical  History  of  Superstitious  Cere- 
monies," by  Lebrun  of  the  Oratory,  is  a  singular 
work.  His  object  is  to  oppose  the  ridiculous  doc- 
trine of  witchcraft,  and  yet  he  is  himself  so  ridic- 


Dictionary.  0.0.g 

ulous  as  to  believe  in  its  reality.  He  pretends  that 
Mary  Bucaille,  the  witch,  while  in  prison  at  Va- 
logiies,  appeared  at  some  leagues  distance,  according 
to  the  evidence  given  on  oath  to  the  judge  of  Va- 
lognes.  He  relates  the  famous  prosecution  of  the 
shepherds  of  Brie,  condemned  in  169 1,  by  the  Par- 
liament of  Paris,  to  be  hanged  and  burned.  These 
shepherds  had  been  fools  enough  to  think  themselves 
sorcerers,  and  villains  enough  to  mix  real  poisons 
with  their  imaginary  sorceries. 

Father  Lebrun  solemnly  asserts  that  there  was 
much  of  what  was  "supernatural"  in  what  they  did, 
and  that  they  were  hanged  in  consequence.  The 
sentence  of  the  parliament  is  in  direct  opposition 
to  this  author's  statement.  "The  court  declares  the 
accused  duly  attainted  and  convicted  of  supersti- 
tions, impieties,  sacrileges,  profanations,  and  poison- 
ings." 

The  sentence  does  not  state  that  the  death  of  the 
cattle  was  caused  by  profanations,  but  by  poison.  A 
man  may  commit  sacrilege  without  as  well  as  with 
poison,  without  being  a  sorcerer. 

Other  judges,  I  acknowledge,  sentenced  the 
priest  Ganfredi  to  be  burned,  in  the  firm  belief  that, 
by  the  influence  of  the  devil,  he  had  an  illicit  com- 
merce with  all  his  female  penitents.  Ganfredi  him- 
self imagined  that  he  was  under  that  influence ;  but 
that  was  in  161 1,  a  period  when  the  majority  of  our 
provincial  population  was  very  little  raised  above 
the  Caribs  and  negroes.     Some  of  this  description 


230  Philosophical 

have  existed  even  in  our  own  times  ;  as,  for  example, 
the  Jesuit  Girard.  the  ex-Jesuit  Nonnotte,  the  Jesuit 
Duplessis,  and  the  ex-Jesuit  Malagrida ;  but  this 
race  of  imbeciles  is  daily  hastening  to  extinction. 

With  respect  to  lycanthropy,  that  is,  the  trans- 
formation of  men  into  wolves  by  the  power  of  en- 
chantment, we  may  observe  that  a  young  shepherd's 
liaving  killed  a  wolf,  and  clothed  himself  with  its 
skin,  was  enough  to  excite  the  terror  of  all  the  old 
women  of  the  district,  and  to  spread  throughout  the 
province,  and  thence  through  other  provinces,  the 
notion  of  a  man's  having  been  changed  into  a  wolf. 
Some  Virgil  will  soon  be  found  to  say: 

His  ego  scEpe  liipujn  fieri,  et  se  condere  silvis 
Moerini  sape  animus  imis  exire  sepulchris. 

Smeared  with  these  powerful  juices  on  the  plain. 

He  howls  a  wolf  among  the  hungry  train, 

And  oft  the  mighty  necromancer  boasts 

With  these  to  call  from  tombs  the  stalking  ghosts. 

— Dryden. 

To  see  a  man-wolf  must  certainly  be  a  great 
curiosity;  but  to  see  human  souls  must  be  more 
curious  still ;  and  did  not  the  monks  of  Monte 
Cassino  see  the  soul  of  the  holy  Benedict,  or  Bennet  ? 
Did  not  the  monks  of  Tours  see  St.  Martin's?  and 
the  monks  of  St.  Denis  that  of  Charles  Martel  ? 

Enchantments  to  Kindle  Love. 

These  were  for  the  young.  They  were  vended 
by  the  Jews  at  Rome  and  Alexandria,  and  are  at  the 
present  day  sold  in  Asia.  You  will  find  some  of 
these  secrets  in  the  "Petit  Albert" ;  and  will  become 


Dictionary.  23 1 

further  initiated  by  reading  the  pleading  composed 
by  Apuleius  on  his  being  accused  by  a  Christian, 
whose  daughter  he  had  married,  of  having  be- 
witched her  by  philtres.  Emilian,  his  father-in-law, 
alleged  that  he  had  made  use  of  certain  fishes,  since, 
Venus  having  been  born  of  the  sea,  fishes  must 
necessarily  have  prodigious  influence  in  exciting 
women  to  love. 

What  was  generally  made  use  of  consisted  of 
vervain,  tenia,  and  hippomanes ;  or  a  small  portion 
of  the  secundine  of  a  mare  that  had  just  foaled,  to- 
gether with  a  little  bird  called  wagtail ;  in  Latin 
motacilla. 

But  Apuleius  was  chiefly  accused  of  having  em- 
ployed shell-fish,  lobster  patties,  she-hedgehogs, 
spiced  oysters,  and  cuttle-fish,  which  was  celebrated 
for  its  productiveness. 

Apuleius  clearly  explains  the  real  philtre,  or 
charm,  which  had  excited  Pudentilla's  affection  for 
him.  He  undoubtedly  admits,  in  his  defence,  that 
his  wife  had  called  him  a  magician.  "But  what," 
says  he,  "if  she  had  called  me  a  consul,  would  that 
have  made  me  one?" 

The  plant  satyrion  was  considered  both  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  as  the  most  powerful  of 
philtres.  It  was  called  planfo  aphrodisia,  the  plant 
of  Venus.  That  called  by  the  Latins  eruca  is  now 
often  added  to  the  former. — Et  venerem  revocans 
eruca  morantem. 

A  little  essence  of  amber  is  frequently  used.  Man- 


232  Philosophical 

dragora  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  Some  exhausted 
debauchees  have  employed  cantharides,  which 
strongly  affect  the  susceptible  parts  of  the  frame, 
and  often  produce  severe  and  painful  consequences. 
Youth  and  health  are  the  only  genuine  philtres. 
Chocolate  was  for  a  long  time  in  great  celebrity 
with  our  debilitated  pefifs-maUres.  But  a  man  may 
take  twenty  cups  of  chocolate  without  inspiring  any 
attachment  to  his  person. — "  .  .  .  .  ut  amoris  am- 
ahilis  esto."  (Ovid,  A.  A.  ii.,  107.) — "Wouldst 
thou  be  loved^  be  amiable." 

END  OF  THE  WORLD. 

The  greater  part  of  the  Greek  philosophers  held 
the  universe  to  be  eternal  both  with  respect  to  com- 
mencement and  duration.  But  as  to  this  petty  por- 
tion of  the  world  or  universe,  this  globe  of  stone 
and  earth  and  water,  of  minerals  and  vapors,  which 
we  inhabit,  it  was  somewhat  difficult  to  form  an 
opinion ;  it  was,  however,  deemed  very  destructible. 
It  was  even  said  that  it  had  been  destroyed  more 
than  once,  and  would  be  destroyed  again.  Every 
one  judged  of  the  whole  world  from  his  own  par- 
ticular country,  as  an  old  woman  judges  of  all  man- 
kind from  those  in  her  own  nook  and  neighborhood. 

This  idea  of  the  end  of  our  little  world  and  its 
renovation  strongly  possessed  the  imagination  of  the 
nations  under  subjection  to  the  Roman  Empire, 
amidst  the  horrors  of  the  civil  wars  between  Caesar 


Dictionary.  233 

and  Pompey.  Virgil,  in  his  "Georgics"  (i.,  468), 
alludes  to  the  general  apprehension  which  filled  the 
minds  of  the  common  people  from  this  cause : 
'^Impiaque  eternam  timuerunt  secula  noctem." — 
"And  impious  men  now  dread  eternal  night." 

Lucan,  in  the  following  lines,  expresses  himself 
much  more  explicitly: 

Hos  Casar  populos,  si  mine  non  usserit  ignis 
Uret  cum  terris,  uret  cum  gurgite  ponti. 
Communis  mundo  superest  rogus  .... 

— Phars.  vii,  V.  812,  14. 

Though  now  thy  cruelty  denies  a  grave, 

These  and  the  world  one  common  lot  shall  have; 

One  last  appointed  flame,  by  fate's  decree, 

Shall  waste  yon  azure  heavens,  the  earth,  and  sea. 

— ROWE. 

And  Ovid,  following  up  the  observations  of 
Lucan,  says : 

Esse  quogue  infatis  reminiscitur  affore  tempus, 
Quo  mare,  quo  tellus,  correptaque  res^ia  caeli. 
Ardent  et  mundi  ?noles  operosa  laboret. 

—Met.  i.  v.  256,  58, 

For  thus  the  stern,  unyielding  fates  decree. 
That  earth,  air,  heaven,  with  the  capacious  sea. 
All  shall  fall  victims  to  consuming  tire, 
And  in  fierce  flames  the  blazing  world  expire. 

Consult  Cicero  himself,  the  philosophic  Cicero. 
He  tells  us,  in  his  book  concerning  the  "Nature  of 
the  Gods,"  the  best  work  perhaps  of  all  antiquity, 
unless  we  make  an  exception  in  favor  of  his  treatise 
on  human  duties,  called  ''The  Offices";  in  that  book, 
I  say,  he  remarks : 

"Ex  quo  eventurum  nostri  putant  id,  de  quo  Pan- 
atium  adduhitare  dicebant;   lit  ad  extremum  omnis 


234  Philosophical 

mundus  ignosceret,  cum,  Jmtnore  consiimpto,  neque 
terra  ali  posset,  neque  remearet,  aer  cujus  ortus, 
aqua  omni  exhausta,  esse  non  posset;  ita  relinqui 
nihil  prceter  ignem,  a  quo  rursum  animante  ac  Deo 
renovatio  mundi  Heret;  atque  idem  ornatus  orire- 
tiir." 

"According  to  the  Stoics,  the  whole  world  will 
eventually  consist  only  of  fire ;  the  water  being  then 
exhausted,  will  leave  no  nourishment  for  the  earth ; 
and  the  air,  which  derives  its  existence  from  water, 
can  of  course  no  longer  be  supplied.  Thus  fire 
alone  will  remain,  and  this  fire,  reanimating  every- 
thing with,  as  it  were,  god-like  power  and  energy, 
will  restore  the  world  with  improved  beauty." 

This  natural  philosophy  of  the  Stoics,  like  that 
indeed  of  all  antiquity,  is  not  a  little  absurd ;  it 
shows,  however,  that  the  expectation  of  a  general 
conflagration  was  universal. 

Prepare,  however,  for  greater  astonishment  than 
the  errors  of  antiquity  can  excite.  The  great  New- 
ton held  the  same  opinion  as  Cicero.  Deceived  by 
an  incorrect  experiment  of  Boyle,  he  thought  that 
the  moisture  of  the  globe  would  at  length  be  dried 
up,  and  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  God  to  apply 
His  reforming  hand  "manum  emendatricem/'  Thus 
we  have  the  two  greatest  men  of  ancient  Rome  and 
modern  England  precisely  of  the  same  opinion,  that 
at  some  future  period  fire  will  completely  prevail 
over  water. 

This  idea  of  a  perishing  and  subsequently  to  be 


Dictionary.  235 

renewed  world  was  deeply  rooted  in  the  minds  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  Egypt, 
from  the  time  of  the  civil  wars  of  the  successors  of 
Alexander.  Those  of  the  Romans  augmented  the 
terror,  upon  this  subject,  of  the  various  nations 
which  became  the  victims  of  them.  They  expected 
the  destruction  of  the  world  and  hoped  for  a  new 
one.  The  Jews,  who  are  slaves  in  Syria  and  scat- 
tered through  every  other  land,  partook  of  this  uni- 
versal terror. 

Accordingly,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Jews 
were  at  all  astonished  when  Jesus  said  to  them,  ac- 
cording to  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke:  "Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away."  He  often  said  to  them : 
"The  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand."  He  preached  the 
gospel  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

St.  Peter  announces  that  the  gospel  was  preached 
to  them  that  were  dead,  and  that  the  end  of  the 
world  drew  near.  "We  expect,"  says  he,  '  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth." 

St.  John,  in  his  first  Epistle,  says :  "There  are 
at  present  many  antichrists,  which  shows  that  the 
last  hour  draws  near." 

St.  Luke,  in  much  greater  detail,  predicts  the  end 
of  the  world  and  the  last  judgment.  These  are  his 
words : 

"There  shall  be  signs  in  the  moon  and  in  the 
stars,  roarings  of  the  sea  and  the  waves :  men's 
hearts  failing  them  for  fear  shall  look  with  trem- 
bling to  the  events  about  to  happen.     The  powers 


2^6  Philosophical 

of  heaven  shall  be  shaken ;  and  then  shall  they  see 
the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  a  cloud,  with  great  power 
and  majesty.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  the  present 
generation  shall  not  pass  away  till  all  this  be  ful- 
filled." 

We  do  not  dissemble  that  unbelievers  upbraid  us 
with  this  very  prediction;  they  want  to  make  us 
blush  for  our  faith,  when  we  consider  that  the 
world  is  still  in  existence.  The  generation,  they 
say,  is  passed  away,  and  yet  nothing  at  all  of  this  is 
fulfilled.  Luke,  therefore,  ascribes  language  to  our 
Saviour  which  he  never  uttered,  or  we  must  con- 
clude that  Jesus  Christ  Himself  was  mistaken,  which 
would  be  blasphemy.  But  we  close  the  mouth  of 
these  impious  cavillers  by  observing  that  this  predic- 
tion, which  appears  so  false  in  its  literal  meaning, 
is  true  in  its  spirit;  that  the  whole  world  meant 
Judasa,  and  that  the  end  of  ihe  world  signified  the 
reign  of  Titus  and  his  successors. 

St.  Paul  expresses  himself  very  strongly  on  the 
subject  of  the  end  of  the  world  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Thessalonians :  "We  who  survive,  and  who  now 
address  you,  shall  be  taken  up  into  the  clouds  to 
meet  the  Lord  in  the  air." 

According  to  these  very  words  of  Jesus  and  St. 
Paul,  the  whole  world  was  to  have  an  end  under 
Tiberius,  or  at  latest  under  Nero.  St.  Paul's  pre- 
diction was  fulfilled  no  more  than  St,  Luke's. 

These  allegorical  predictions  were  undoubtedly 
not  meant  to  apply  to  the  times  of  the  evangelists 


Dictionary.  237 

and  apostles,  but  to  some  future  time,  which  God 

conceals  from  all  mankind. 

Tu  ne  quaesieris  {scire  nefas)  quern  ntihi,  quern  tibi 

Fineni  Dii  dederint,  Leuconoe,  nee  Babylonios 
Tentaris  numeyos<     Ut  melius,  quicquid  erit,  fati! 

— Horace  i.  ode  xl. 
Strive  not;  Leuconoe,  to  pry 
Ihto  the  secret  will  of  fate, 
Nor  impious  magic  vainly  try 
To  know  our  lives'  uncertain  date. 
—Francis. 

It  is  still  perfectly  certain  that  all  nations  then 
known  entertained  the  expectation  of  the  end  of  the 
world,  of  a  new  earth  and  a  new  heaven.  For  more 
than  sixteen  centuries  we  see  that  donations  to 
monkish  institutions  have  commenced  with  these 
words :  "Adveiitante  mitiidi  vespere,"  etc. — "The 
end  of  the  world  being  at  hand,  I,  for  the  good  of 
my  soul,  and  to  avoid  being  one  of  the  number  of 
the  goats  on  the  left  hand  ....  leave  such  and 
such  lands  to  such  a  convent."  Fear  influenced  the 
weak  to  enrich  the  cunning. 

The  Egyptians  fixed  this  grand  epoch  at  the  end 
of  thirty-six  thousand  five  hundred  years ;  Orpheus 
is  stated  to  have  fixed  it  at  the  distance  of  a  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  years. 

The  historian  Flavins  Josephus  asserts  that 
Adam,  having  predicted  that  the  world  would  be 
twice  destroyed,  once  by  water  and  next  by  fire, 
the  children  of  Seth  were  desirous  of  announcing 
to  the  future  race  of  men  the  disastrous  catastrophe. 
They  engraved  astronomical  observations  on  two 
columns,  one  made  of  bricks,  which  should  resist 


238  Philosophical 

the  fire  that  was  to  consume  the  world ;  the  other 
of  stones,  which  would  remain  uninjured  by  the 
water  that  was  to  drown  it.  But  what  thought  the 
Romans,  when  a  few  slaves  talked  to  them  about  an 
Adam  and  a  Seth  unknown  to  all  the  world  besides? 
They  smiled.  Josephus  adds  that  the  column  of 
stones  was  to  be  seen  in  his  own  time  in  Syria. 

From  all  that  has  been  said,  we  may  conclude 
that  we  know  exceedingly  little  of  past  events — that 
we  are  but  ill  acquainted  with  those  present — that 
we  know  nothing  at  all  about  the  future — and  that 
we  ought  to  refer  everything  relating  to  them  to 
God,  the  master  of  those  three  divisions  of  time  and 
of  eternity. 

ENTHUSIASM. 

This  Greek  word  signifies  "emotion  of  the 
bowels,  internal  agitation."  Was  the  word  invented 
by  the  Greeks  to  express  the  vibrations  experienced 
by  the  nerves,  the  dilation  and  shrinking  of  the  in- 
testines, the  violent  contractions  of  the  heart,  the 
precipitous  course  of  those  fiery  spirits  which  mount 
from  the  viscera  to  the  brain  whenever  we  are 
strongly  and  vividly  affected? 

Or  was  the  term  "enthusiasm,"  after  painful  af- 
fection of  the  bowels,  first  applied  to  the  contortions 
of  the  Pythia,  who,  on  the  Delphian  tripod,  admitted 
the  inspiration  of  Apollo  in  a  place  apparently  in- 
tended for  the  receptacle  of  body  rather  than  of 
spirit  ? 


Dictionary.  239 

What  do  we  understand  by  enthusiasm?  How 
many  shades  are  there  in  our  affections !  Appro- 
bation, sensibihty,  emotion,  distress,  impulse,  pas- 
sion, transport,,  insanity,  rage,  fury.  Such  are  the 
stages  through  which  the  miserable  soul  of  man  is 
liable  to  pass. 

A  geometrician  attends  at  the  representation  of 
an  affecting  tragedy.  He  merely  remarks  that  it  is 
a  judicious,  well-written  performance.  A  young 
man  who  sits  next  to  him  is  so  interested  by  the  per- 
formance that  he  makes  no  remark  at  all ;  a  lady 
sheds  tears  over  it ;  another  young  man  is  so  trans- 
ported by  the  exhibition  that  to  his  great  misfortune 
he  goes  home  determined  to  compose  a  tragedy  him- 
self.   He  has  caught  the  disease  of  enthusiasm. 

The  centurion  or  military  tribune  who  considers 
war  simply  as  a  profession  by  which  he  is  to  make 
his  fortune,  goes  to  battle  coolly,  like  a  tiler  ascend- 
ing the  roof  of  a  house.  Caesar  wept  at  seeing  the 
statue  of  Alexander. 

Ovid  speaks  of  love  only  like  one  who  understood 
it.  Sappho  expressed  the  genuine  enthusiasm  of  the 
passion,  and  if  it  be  true  that  she  sacrificed  her  life 
to  it,  her  enthusiasm  must  have  advanced  to  mad- 
ness. 

The  spirit  of  party  tends  astonishingly  to  excite 
enthusiasm ;  there  is  no  faction  that  has  not  its 
"energumens,"  its  devoted  and  possessed  partisans. 
An  animated  speaker  who  employs  gesture  in  his 
addresses,  has  in  his  eyes,  his  voice,  his  movements. 


240  Philosophical 

a  subtle  poison  which  passes  with  an  arrow's  speed 
into  the  ears  and  hearts  of  his  partial  hearers.  It 
was  on  this  ground  that  Queen  Elizabeth  forbade 
any  one  to  preach,  during  six  months,  without  an 
express  licence  under  her  sign  manual,  that  the 
peace  of  her  kingdom  might  be  undisturbed. 

St.  Ignatius,  who  possessed  very  warm  and  sus- 
ceptible feelings,  read  the  lives  of  the  fathers  of 
the  desert  after  being  deeply  read  in  romances.  He 
becomes,  in  consequence,  actuated  by  a  double  en- 
thusiasm. He  constitutes  himself  knight  to  the  Vir- 
gin Mary,  he  performed  the  vigil  of  arms ;  he  is 
eager  to  fight  for  his  lady  patroness ;  he  is  favored 
with  visions ;  the  virgin  appears  and  recommends  to 
him  her  son,  and  she  enjoins  him  to  give  no  other 
name  to  his  society  than  that  of  the  "Society  of 
Jesus." 

Ignatius  communicates  his  enthusiasm  to  another 
Spaniard  of  the  name  of  Xavier.  Xavier  hastens 
away  to  the  Indies,  of  the  language  of  which  he  is 
utterly  ignorant,  thence  to  Japan,  without  knowing 
a  word  of  Japanese.  That,  however,  is  of  no  con- 
sequence; the  flame  of  his  enthusiasm  catches  the 
imagination  of  some  young  Jesuits,  who,  at  length, 
make  themselves  masters  of  that  language.  These 
disciples,  after  Xavier's  death,  entertain  not  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt  that  he  performed  more  miracles 
than  ever  the  apostles  did,  and  that  he  resuscitated 
seven  or  eight  persons  at  the  very  least.  In  short, 
so  epidemic  and  powerful  becomes  the  enthusiasm 


Dictionary.  241 

that  they  form  in  Japan  what  they  denominate  a 
Christendom  (une  Chretiente).  This  Christendom 
ends  in  a  civil  war,  in  which  a  hundred  thousand 
persons  are  slaughtered :  the  enthusiasm  then  is  at 
its  highest  point,  fanaticism ;  and  fanaticism  has  be- 
come madness. 

The  young  fakir  who  fixes  his  eye  on  the  tip 
of  his  nose  when  saying  his  prayers,  gradually  kin- 
dles in  devotional  ardor  until  he  at  length  believes 
that  if  he  burdens  himself  with  chains  of  fifty 
pounds  weight  the  Supreme  Being  will  be  obliged 
and  grateful  to  him.  He  goes  to  sleep  with  an  im- 
agination totally  absorbed  by  Brahma,  and  is  sure  to 
have  a  sight  of  him  in  a  dream.  Occasionally  even 
in  the  intermediate  state  betw-een  sleeping  and  wak- 
ing, sparks  radiate  from  his  eyes ;  he  beholds  Brah- 
ma resplendent  with  light ;  he  falls  into  ecstasies, 
and  the  disease  frequently  becomes  incurable. 

What  is  most  rarely  to  be  met  with  is  the  com- 
bination of  reason  with  enthusiasm.  Reason  con- 
sists in  constantly  perceiving  things  as  they  really 
are.  He,  who,  under  the  influence  of  intoxication, 
sees  objects  double  is  at  the  time  deprived  of  reason. 

Enthusiasm  is  precisely  like  wine,  it  has  the 
power  to  excite  such  a  ferment  in  the  blood-vessels, 
and  such  strong  vibrations  in  the  nerves,  that  reason 
is  completely  destroyed  by  it.  But  it  may  also  oc- 
casion only  slight  agitations  so  as  not  to  convulse 
the  brain,  but  merely  to  render  it  more  active,  as  is 

the  case  in  grand  bursts  of  eloquence  and   more 
Vol.  8—16 


242  Philosophical 

especially  in  sublime  poetry.  Reasonable  enthusiasm 
is  the  patrimony  of  great  poets. 

This  reasonable  enthusiasm  is  the  perfection  of 
their  art.  It  is  this  which  formerly  occasioned  the 
belief  that  poets  were  inspired  by  the  gods,  a  notion 
which  was  never  applied  to  other  artists. 

How  is  reasoning  to  control  enthusiasm  ?  A  poet 
should,  in  the  first  instance,  make  a  sketch  of  his 
design.  Reason  then  holds  the  crayon.  But  when 
he  is  desirous  of  animating  his  characters,  to  com- 
municate to  them  the  different  and  just  expressions 
of  the  passions,  then  his  imagination  kindles,  enthu- 
siasm is  in  full  operation  and  urges  him  on  like  a 
fiery  courser  in  his  career.  But  his  course  has  been 
previously  traced  with  coolness  and  judgment. 

Enthusiasm  is  admissible  into  every  species  of 

poetry  which  admits  of  sentiment ;   we  occasionally 

find  it  even  in  the  eclogue ;    witness  the  following 

lines  of  Virgil  (Eclogue  x.  v.  58)  : 

Jam  mihi per  rupes  videor  bicosqne  sonantes 
Ire;  libet  Partho  torquere  cydonia  cornti 
Spicula  ;  tanquatn  Jiaec  sint  nostri  medicina  fiiroris, 
Aut  deus  ille  mails  honiimDii  mltescere  dlscat! 

Nor  cold  shall  hinder  me,  with  horns  and  hounds 

To  thrid  the  thickets,  or  to  leap  the  mounds. 

And  now,  methinks,  through  steepy  rocks  I  go, 

And  rush  through  sounding  woods  and  bend  the  Parthian 

bow: 
As  if  with  sports  my  sufferings  I  could  ease, 
Or  by  my  pains  the  god  of  Love  appease. 

The  style  of  epistles  and  satires  represses  enthu- 
siasm, we  accordingly  see  little  or  nothing  of  it  in 
the  works  of  Boileau  and  Pope. 


Dictionary.  243 

Our  odes,  it  is  said  by  some,  are  genuine  lyrical 
enthusiasm,  but  as  they  are  not  sung  with  us,  they 
are,  in  fact,  rather  collections  of  verses,  adorned  with 
ingenious  reflections,  than  odes. 

Of  all  modern  odes  that  which  abounds  with  the 
noblest  enthusiasm,  an  enthusiasm  that  never  abates, 
that  never  falls  into  the  bombastic  or  the  ridiculous, 
is  "Timotheus,  or  Alexander's  Feast,"  by  Dryden. 
It  is  still  considered  in  England  as  an  inimitable 
masterpiece,  which  Pope,  when  attempting  the  same 
style  and  the  same  subject,  could  not  even  approach. 
This  ode  was  sung,  set  to  music,  and  if  the  musician 
had  been  worthy  of  the  poet  it  would  have  been  the 
masterpiece  of  lyric  poesy. 

The  most  dangerous  tendency  of  enthusiasm  in 
this  occurs  in  an  ode  on  the  birth  of  a  prince  of  the 
bast,  rant,  and  burlesque.  A  striking  example  of 
this  occurs  in  an  ode  on  the  birth  of  a  prince  of  the 
blood  royal : 

On  stiis-je?  quel  nouveau  miracle 

Tient  encore  mes  sens  e7tchantt's 

Quel  vaste,  quel  pompeux  spectacle 
Frappe  mes  yeiix  e'potevantifs  ? 

Un  nouveau  monde  vient  d'e'clore 
L'tinivers  se  reforine  encore 
Dans  les  abhncs  die  chaos  ; 
Et,  pour  reparer  ses  ruines 
Je  vols  des  demeures  divines 
Descefidre  un  peuple  de  heros. 

— J.  B.  Rousseau. 

"Ode  on  the  Birth  of  the  Duke  of  Brittany." 

Here  we  find  the  poet's  senses  enchanted  and 
alarmed  at  the  appearance  of  a  prodigy — a  vast  and 
magnificent  spectacle — a  new  birth  which  is  to  re- 


244  Philosophical 

form  the  universe  and  redeem  it  from  a  state  of 
chaos,  all  which  means  simply  that  a  male  child  is 
born  to  the  house  of  Bourbon.  This  is  as  bad  as 
"Je  chante  Ics  vainqueiirs,  des  vainquenrs  de  la 
terre." 

We  will  avail  ourselves  of  the  present  opportu- 
nity to  observe  that  there  is  a  very  small  portion 
of  enthusiasm  in  the  "Ode  on  the  Taking  of  Na- 
mur." 

ENVY. 

We  all  know  what  the  ancients  said  of  this  dis- 
graceful passion  and  what  the  moderns  have  re- 
peated. Hesiod  is  the  first  classic  author  who  has 
spoken  of  it. 

"The  potter  envies  the  potter,  the  artisan  the 
artisan,  the  poor  even  the  poor,  the  musician  the 
musician — or,  if  any  one  chooses  to  give  a  different 
meaning  to  the  word  avidos — the  poet  the  poet." 

Long  before  Hesiod,  Job  had  remarked,  "Envy 
destroys  the  little-minded." 

I  believe  Mandeville,  the  author  of  the  "Fable  of 
the  Bees,"  is  the  first  who  has  endeavored  to  prove 
that  envy  is  a  good  thing,  a  very  useful  passion. 
His  first  reason  is  that  envy  was  as  natural  to  man 
as  hunger  and  thirst ;  that  it  may  be  observed  in  all 
children,  as  well  as  in  horses  and  dogs.  If  you  wish 
your  children  to  hate  one  another,  caress  one  more 
than  the  other ;   the  prescription  is  infallible. 

He  asserts  that  the  first  thing  two  young  women 


Dictionary.  245 

do  when  they  meet  together  is  to  discover  matter  for 
ridicule,  and  the  second  to  flatter  each  other. 

He  thinks  that  without  envy  the  arts  would  be 
only  moderately  cultivated,  and  that  Raphael  would 
never  have  been  a  great  painter  if  he  had  not  been 
jealous  of  Michael  Angelo. 

Mandeville,  perhaps,  mistook  emulation  for  envy ; 
perhaps,  also,  emulation  is  nothing  but  envy  re- 
stricted within  the  bounds  of  decency. 

Michael  Angelo  might  say  to  Raphael,  your  envy 
has  only  induced  you  to  study  and  execute  still  bet- 
ter than  I  do;  you  have  not  depreciated  me,  you 
have  not  caballed  against  me  before  the  pope,  you 
have  not  endeavored  to  get  me  excommunicated  for 
placing  in  my  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment  one-eyed 
and  lame  persons  in  paradise,  and  pampered  cardi- 
nals with  beautiful  women  perfectly  naked  in  hell ! 
No !  your  envy  is  a  laudable  feeling ;  you  are  brave 
as  well  as  envious ;  let  us  be  good  friends. 

But  if  the  envious  person  is  an  unhappy  being 
without  talents,  jealous  of  merit  as  the  poor  are  of 
the  rich ;  if  under  the  pressure  at  once  of  indigence 
^nd  baseness  he  writes  "News  from  Parnassus," 
"Letters  from  a  Celebrated  Countess,"  or  "Literary 
Annals,"  the  creature  displays  an  envy  which  is  in 
fact  absolutely  good  for  nothing,  and  for  which  even 
Mandeville  could  make  no  apolog}^ 

Descartes  said :  "Envy  forces  up  the  yellow  bile 
from  the  lower  part  of  the  liver,  and  the  black  bile 
that  comes  from  the  spleen,  which   diffuses   itself 


246  Philosophical 

from  the  heart  by  the  arteries."  But  as  no  sort  of 
bile  is  formed  in  the  spleen,  Descartes,  when  he 
spoke  thus,  deserved  not  to  be  envied  for  his  physi- 
ology. 

A  person  of  the  name  of  Poet  or  Poetius,  a  theo- 
logical blackguard,  who  accused  Descartes  of  athe- 
ism, was  exceedingly  affected  by  the  black  bile.  But 
he  knew  still  less  than  Descartes  how  his  detestable 
bile  circulated  through  his  blood. 

Madame  Pernelle  is  perfectly  right :  ''Lcs  en- 
vieux  mourront,  mais  non  jamais  I'envic." — The  en- 
vious will  die,  but  envy  never.  ("Tartuffe,"  Act  V, 
Scene  3.) 

That  it  is  better  to  excite  envy  than  pity  is  a  good 
proverb.  Let  us,  then,  make  men  envy  us  as  mucli 
as  we  are  able. 

EPIC  POETRY. 

Since  the  word  "epos,"  among  the  Greeks,  signi- 
fied a  discourse,  an  epic  poem  must  have  been  a  dis- 
course, and  it  was  in  verse  because  it  was  not  then 
the  custom  to  write  in  prose.  This  appears  strange, 
but  it  is  no  less  true.  One  Pherecydes  is  supposed 
to  have  been  the  first  Greek  who  made  exclusive  use 
of  prose  to  compose  one  of  those  half-true,  half- 
false  histories  so  common  to  antiquity. 

Orpheus,  Linus,  Thamyris,  and  Musseus,  the 
predecessors  of  Homer,  wrote  in  verse  only.  Hesiod, 
who  was  certainly  contemporary  with  Homer,  wrote 
his  "Theogony"  and  his  poem  of  "Works  and  Days" 


Dictionary.  247 

entirely  in  verse.  The  harmony  of  the  Greek  lan- 
guage so  invited  men  to  poetry,  a  maxim  turned  into 
verse  was  so  easily  engraved  on  the  memory  that  the 
laws,  oracles,  morals,  and  theology  were  all  com- 
posed in  verse. 

Of  Hesiod. 

He  made  use  of  fables  which  had  for  a  long  time 
been  received  in  Greece.  It  is  clearly  seen  by  the 
succinct  manner  in  w^hich  he  speaks  of  Prometheus 
and  Epimetheus  that  he  supposes  these  notions  al- 
ready familiar  to  all  the  Greeks.  He  only  mentions 
them  to  show  that  it  is  necessary  to  labor,  and  that 
an  indolent  repose,  in  which  other  mythologists  have 
made  the  felicity  of  man  to  consist,  is  a  violation  of 
the  orders  of  the  Supreme  Being. 

Hesiod  afterwards  describes  the  four  famous 
ages,  of  which  he  is  the  first  who  has  spoken,  at 
least  among  the  ancient  authors  who  remain  to  us. 
The  first  age  is  that  which  preceded  Pandora — the 
time  in  which  men  lived  with  the  gods.  The  iron 
age  is  that  of  the  siege  of  Thebes  and  Troy.  'T  live 
in  the  fifth,"  says  he,  "and  I  would  I  had  never  been 
born."  How  many  men,  oppressed  by  envy,  fanati- 
cism, and  tyranny,  since  Hesiod,  have  said  the  same ! 

It  is  in  this  poem  of  "Works  and  Days"  that  those 
proverbs  are  found  which  have  been  perpetuated,  as 
— "the  potter  is  jealous  of  the  potter,"  and  he  adds, 
"the  musician  of  the  musician,  and  the  poor  even  of 
the  poor."    We  there  find  the  original  of  our  fable 


248  Philosophical 

of  the  nightingale  fallen  into  the  claws  of  the  vul- 
ture. The  nightingale  sings  in  vain  to  soften  him ; 
the  vulture  devours  her.  Hesiod  does  not  conclude 
that  a  hungry  belly  has  no  ears,  but  that  tyrants  are 
not  to  be  mollified  by  genius. 

A  hundred  maxims  worthy  of  Xenophon  and 
Cato  are  to  be  found  in  this  poem. 

Men  are  ignorant  of  the  advantage  of  society : 
they  know  not  that  the  half  is  more  valuable  than 
the  whole. 

Iniquity  is  pernicious  only  to  the  powerless. 

Equity  alone  causes  cities  to  flourish. 

One  unjust  man  is  often  sufficient  to  ruin  his 
country. 

The  wretch  who  plots  the  destruction  of  his 
neighbor  often  prepares  the  way  to  his  own. 

The  road  to  crime  is  short  and  easy.  That  of 
virtue  is  long  and  difficult,  but  towards  the  end  it  is 
delightful. 

God  has  placed  labor  as  a  sentinel  over  virtue. 

Lastly,  the  precepts  on  agriculture  were  worthy 
to  be  imitated  by  Virgil.  There  are,  also,  very  fine 
passages  in  his  "Theogony."  Love,  who  disentan- 
gles chaos ;  Venus,  born  of  the  sea  from  the  genital 
parts  of  a  god  nourished  on  earth,  always  followed 
by  Love,  and  uniting  heaven,  earth,  and  sea,  are  ad- 
mirable emblems. 

Why,  then,  has  Hesiod  had  less  reputation  than 
Homer?  They  seem  to  me  of  equal  merit,  but 
Homer  has  been  preferred  by  the  Greeks  because  he 


Dictionary.  249 

sang  their  exploits  and  victories  over  the  Asiatics, 
their  eternal  enemies.  He  celebrated  all  the  families 
which  in  his  time  reigned  in  Achaia  and  Peloponne- 
sus ;  he  wrote  the  most  memorable  war  of  the  first 
people  in  Europe  against  the  most  flourishing  nation 
which  was  then  known  in  Asia.  His  poem  was  al- 
most the  only  monument  of  that  great  epoch.  There 
was  no  town  nor  family  which  did  not  think  itself 
honored  by  having  its  name  mentioned  in  these  rec- 
ords of  valor.  We  are  even  assured  that  a  long 
time  after  him  some  differences  between  the  Greek 
towns  on  the  subject  of  adjacent  lands  were  decided 
by  the  verses  of  Homer.  He  became,  after  his  death, 
the  judge  of  cities  in  which  it  is  pretended  that  he 
asked  alms  during  his  life,  which  proves,  also,  that 
the  Greeks  had  poets  long  before  they  had  geog- 
raphers. 

It  is  astonishing  that  the  Greeks,  so  disposed  to 
honor  epic  poems  which  immortalized  the  combats 
of  their  ancestors,  produced  no  one  to  sing  the  bat- 
tles of  Marathon,  Thermopylae,  Platsea,  and  Sala- 
mis.  The  heroes  of  these  times  were  much  greater 
men  than  Agamemnon,  Achilles,  and  Ajax. 

Tyrtseus,  a  captain,  poet,  and  musician,  like  the 
king  of  Prussia  in  our  days,  made  war  and  sang  it. 
He  animated  the  Spartans  against  the  Messenians 
by  his  verses,  and  gained  the  victory.  But  his  works 
are  lost.  It  does  not  appear  that  any  epic  poem  was 
written  in  the  time  of  Pericles.  The  attention  of 
genius  was  turned  towards  tragedy,  so  that  Homer 


2^0  Philosophical 

stood  alone,  and  his  glory  increased  daily.    We  now 
come  to  his  "Iliad." 

Of  the  Iliad. 

What  confirms  me  in  the  opinion  that  Homer  was 
of  the  Greek  colony  established  at  Smyrna  is  the  ori- 
ental style  of  all  his  metaphors  and  pictures :  The 
earth  which  shook  under  the  feet  of  the  army  when 
it  marched  like  the  thunderbolts  of  Jupiter  on  the 
hills  which  overwhelmed  the  giant  Typhon ;  a  wind 
blacker  than  night  winged  with  tempests  ;  Mars  and 
Minerva  followed  by  Terror,  Flight,  and  insatiable 
Discord,  the  sister  and  companion  of  Homicide,  the 
goddess  of  battles,  who  raises  tumults  wherever  she 
appears,  and  who,  not  content  with  setting  the  world 
by  the  ears,  even  exalts  her  proud  head  into  heaven. 
The  "Iliad"  is  full  of  these  images,  which  caused  the 
sculptor  Bouchardon  to  say,  "When  I  read  Homer 
I  believe  myself  twenty  feet  high." 

His  poem,  which  is  not  at  all  interesting  to  us, 
\\as  very  precious  to  the  Greeks.  His  gods  arc 
ridiculous  to  reasonable  but  they  were  not  so  to  par- 
tial eyes,  and  it  was  for  partial  eyes  that  he  wrote. 

We  laugh  and  shrug  our  shoulders  at  these 
gods,  who  abused  one  another,  fought  one  another, 
and  combated  with  men — who  were  wounded  and 
whose  blood  flowed,  but  such  w^as  the  ancient  theol- 
ogy of  Greece  and  of  almost  all  the  Asiatic  people. 
Every  nation,  every  little  village  had  its  particular 
god,  which  conducted  it  to  battle. 


Dictionary.  251 

The  inhabitants  of  the  clouds  and  of  the  stars 
which  were  supposed  in  the  clouds,  had  a  cruel  war. 
The  combat  of  the  angels  against  one  another  was 
from  time  immemorial  the  foundation  of  the  religion 
of  the  Brahmins.  The  battle  of  the  Titans,  the  chil- 
dren of  heaven  and  earth,  against  the  chief  gods  of 
Olympus,  was  also  the  leading  mystery  of  the  Greek 
religion.  Typhon,  according  to  the  Egyptians,  had 
fought  against  Oshiret,  whom  we  call  Osiris,  and 
cut  him  to  pieces. 

Madame  Dacier,  in  her  preface  to  the  "Iliad,"  re- 
marks very  sensibly,  after  Eustathius,  bishop  of 
Thessalonica,  and  Huet,  bishop  of  Avranches,  that 
every  neighboring  nation  of  the  Hebrews  had  its  god 
of  war.  Indeed,  does  not  Jephthah  say  to  the  Am- 
monites, "Wilt  not  thou  possess  that  which  Chemosh 
thy  god  giveth  thee  to  possess?  So,  whomsoever 
the  Lord  our  God  shall  drive  out  from  before  us, 
from  them  will  we  possess." 

Do  we  not  see  the  God  of  Judah  a  conqueror 
in  the  mountains  and  repulsed  in  the  valleys? 

As  to  men  wrestling  against  divinities,  that  is  a 
received  idea.  Jacob  wrestled  one  whole  night  with 
an  angel.  If  Jupiter  sent  a  deceiving  dream  to  the 
chief  of  the  Greeks,  the  Lord  also  sent  a  deceiving 
spirit  to  King  Ahab.  These  emblems  were  frequent 
and  astonished  nobody.  Homer  has  then  painted 
the  ideas  of  his  own  age ;  he  could  not  paint  those 
of  the  generations  which  succeeded  him. 

Homer  has  great  faults.     Horace  confesses   it. 


■j.^-2  Philosophical 

and  all  men  of  taste  agree  to  it ;  there  is  only  one 
commentator  who  is  blind  enough  not  to  see  them. 
Pope,  who  was  himself  a  translator  of  the  Greek 
poet,  says :  "It  is  a  vast  but  uncultivated  country 
where  we  meet  with  all  kinds  of  natural  beauties, 
but  which  do  not  present  themselves  as  regularly 
as  in  a  garden ;  it  is  an  abundant  nursery  which 
contains  the  seeds  of  all  fruits  ;  a  great  tree  that  ex- 
tends superfluous  branches  which  it  is  necessary  to 
prune." 

Madame  Dacier  sides  with  the  vast  country,  the 
nursery  and  the  tree,  and  would  have  nothing  cur- 
tailed. She  was  no  doubt  a  woman  superior  to  her 
sex,  and  has  done  great  service  to  letters,  as  well  as 
her  husband,  but  when  she  became  masculine  and 
turned  commentator,  she  so  overacted  her  part  that 
she  piqued  people  into  finding  fault  with  Homer. 
She  was  so  obstinate  as  to  quarrel  even  with  Mon- 
sieur de  La  Motte.  She  wrote  against  him  like  the 
head  of  a  college,  and  La  Motte  answered  like  a  po- 
lite and  witty  woman.  He  translated  the  "Iliad" 
very  badly,  but  he  attacked  Madame  Dacier  very 
well. 

We  will  not  speak  of  the  "Odyssey"  here;  we 
shall  say  something  of  that  poem  while  treating  of 
Ariosto. 

Of  Virgil. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  second,  fourth,  and 
sixth  book  of  the  "^neid"  are  as  much  above  all 
Greek  and  Latin  poets,  without  exception,  as  the 


Dictionary.  253 

statues  of  Girardon  are  superior  to  all  those  which 

preceded  them  in  France. 

It  is  often  said  that  Virgil  has  borrowed  many  of 

the  figures  of  Homer,  and  that  he  is  even  inferior  to 

him  in  his  imitations,  but  he  has  not  imitated  him 

at  all  in  the  three  books  of  which  I  am  speaking; 

he  is  there  himself  touching  and  appalling  to  the 

heart.    Perhaps  he  was  not  suited  for  terrific  detail, 

but  there  had  been  battles  enough.    Horace  had  said 

of  him,  before  he  attempted  the  "^neid :" 

Molle  atque  facetum 
Virgilio  annuertait  gaudentes  rure  camoence. 

Smooth  flow  his  lines,  and  elegant  his  style, 
On  Virgil  all  the  rural  muses  smile. 

—Francis. 

"Facetum"  does  not  here  signify  facetious  but 
agreeable.  I  do  not  know  whether  we  shall  not  find 
a  little  of  this  happy  and  affecting  softness  in  the 
fatal  passion  of  Dido.  I  think  at  least  that  we  shall 
there  recognize  the  author  of  those  admirable  verses 
which  we  meet  with  in  his  Eclogues :  "Ut  vidi,  iit 
perii,  ut  me  mains  ahstulit  error!" — I  saw,  I  per- 
ished, yet  indulged  my  pain. —  (Dryden.) 

Certainly  the  description  of  the  descent  into  hell 

would  not  be  badly  matched  with  these  lines  from 

the  fourth  Eclogue : 

///<?  Deti?n  vitani  accipiet,  divisque  videbit 
Permistos  heroas,  et  ipse  7'idebitur  illis — 
Pacattimque  reget  patriis  virhitibns  orbem. 

The  sons  shall  lead  the  lives  of  gods,  and  be 
By  gods  and  heroes  seen,  and  gods  and  heroes  see. 
The  jarring  nations  he  in  peace  shall  bind, 
And  with  paternal  virtues  rule  mankind. 

— Dryden. 


•254  Philosophical 

I  meet  with  many  of  these  simple,  elegant,  and 
affecting  passages  in  the  three  beautiful  books  of  the 
".^neid." 

All  the  fourth  book  is  filled  with  touching  verses, 
which  move  those  who  have  any  ear  or  sentiment  at 
all,  even  to  tears,  and  to  point  out  all  the  beauties  of 
this  book  it  w^ould  be  necessary  to  transcribe  the 
whole  of  it.  And  in  the  sombre  picture  of  hell,  how 
this  noble  and  affecting  tenderness  breathes  through 
every  line. 

It  is  well  known  how  many  tears  were  shed  by  the 
emperor  Augustus,  by  Livia,  and  all  the  palace,  at 
hearing  this  half  line  alone:  ''Tu  Marcellus  eris." 
— A  new  Marcellus  will  in  thee  arise. 

Homer  never  produces  tears.  The  true  poet,  ac- 
cording to  my  idea,  is  he  who  touches  the  soul  and 
softens  it,  others  are  only  fine  speakers.  I  am  far 
from  proposing  this  opinion  as  a  rule.  "I  give  my 
opinion,"  says  Montaigne,  "not  as  being  good,  but  as 
being  my  own." 

Of  Lucan. 

If  you  look  for  unity  of  time  and  action  in  Lu- 
can you  will  lose  your  labor,  but  where  else  will 
you  find  it?  If  you  expect  to  feel  any  emotion  or 
any  interest  you  will  not  experience  it  in  the  long 
details  of  a  war,  the  subject  of  which  is  very  dry 
and  the  expressions  bombastic,  but  if  you  would 
have  bold  ideas,  an  eloquent  expatiation  on  sublime 
and  philosophical  courage,  Lucan  is  the  only  one 


Dictionary.  255 

among  the  ancients  in  whom  you  will  meet  with  it. 
There  is  nothing  finer  than  the  speech  of  Labienus 
to  Cato  at  the  gates  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Am- 
nion, if  we  except  the  answer  of  Cato  itself : 

Hcerenius  cttncti  sjiperis?  temploqiie  tacente 

Nil facimus  non  spojtte  Dei 

....  Steriles  num  legit  arenas. 

Ut  caneret paucis ;  mersit  ne  hoc  pulvere  veruin  ! 

Estne  Dei  sedes  nisi  terra  et pontus  et  aer, 

Et  ccehun  et  virtus?     Superos  quid  quceritnus  ultra? 

Jupiter  est  quodcumque  vides  quocu?nque  moveris. 

And  though  our  priests  are  mutes,  and  temples  still. 
We  act  the  dictates  of  his  mighty  will; 
Canst  thou  believe,  the  vast  eternal  mind, 
Was  e'er  to  Syrts  and  Libyan  sands  confined? 
That  he  would  choose  this  waste,  this  barren  ground, 
To  teach  the  thin  inhabitants  around? 
Is  there  a  place  that  God  would  choose  to  love 
Beyond  this  earth,  the  seas,  yon  heaven  above. 
And  virtuous  minds,  the  noblest  throne  of  Jove? 
Why  seek  we  farther,  then?     Behold  around; 
How  all  thou  seest  doth  with  the  God  abound, 
Jove  is  seen  everywhere,  and  always  to  be  found. 

— ROWE. 

Put  together  all  that  the  ancients  poets  have  said 
of  the  gods  and  it  is  childish  in  comparison  with 
this  passage  of  Lucan,  but  in  a  vast  picture,  in  which 
there  are  a  hundred  figures,  it  is  not  sufficient  that 
one  or  two  of  them  are  finely  designed. 

Of  Tasso. 

Boileau  has  exposed  the  tinsel  of  Tasso,  but  if 
there  be  a  hundred  spangles  of  false  gold  in  a  piece 
of  gold  cloth,  it  is  pardonable.  There  are  many 
rough  stones  in  the  great  marble  building  raised  by 
Homer.  Boileau  knew  it,  felt  it,  and  said  nothing 
about  it.    We  should  be  just. 


2^6  Philosophical 

We  recall  the  reader's  memory  to  what  has  been 
said  of  Tasso  in  the  "Essay  on  Epic  Poetry,"  but 
we  must  here  observe  that  his  verses  are  known  by 
heart  all  over  Italy.  If  at  Venice  any  one  in  a  boat 
sings  a  stanza  of  the  "Jerusalem  Delivered,"  he  is 
answered  from  a  neighboring  bark  with  the  follow- 
ing one. 

If  Boileau  had  listened  to  these  concerts  he  could 
have  said  nothing  in  reply.  As  enough  is  known  of 
Tasso,  I  will  not  repeat  here  either  eulogies  or  criti- 
cisms.   I  will  speak  more  at  length  of  Ariosto. 

Of  Ariosto. 

Homer's  "Odyssey"  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
model  of  the  "Morgante,"  of  the  "Orlando  Inna- 
morato,"  and  the  "Orlando  Furioso,"  and,  what  very 
seldom  happens,  the  last  of  the  poems  is  without  dis- 
pute the  best. 

The  companions  of  Ulysses  changed  into  swine ; 
the  winds  shut  up  in  goats'  skins;  the  musicians 
with  fishes'  tails,  who  ate  all  those  who  approached 
them;  Ulysses,  who  followed  the  chariot  of  a  beau- 
tiful princess  who  went  to  bathe  quite  naked ;  Ulys- 
ses, disguised  as  a  beggar,  who  asked  alms,  and 
afterwards  killed  all  the  lovers  of  his  aged  wife, 
assisted  only  by  his  son  and  two  servants — ^are  imag- 
inations which  have  given  birth  to  all  the  poetical 
romances  which  have  since  been  written  in  the  same 
style. 

But  the  romance  of  Ariosto  is  so  full  of  variety 


Dictionary.  257 

and  so  fertile  in  beauties  of  all  kinds  that  after  hav- 
ing read  it  once  quite  through  I  only  wish  to  begin 
it  again.  How  great  the  charm  of  natural  poetry ! 
I  never  could  read  a  single  canto  of  this  poem  in  a 
prose  translation. 

That  which  above  all  charms  me  in  this  wonder- 
ful work  is  that  the  author  is  always  above  his  sub- 
ject, and  treats  it  playfully.  He  says  the  most  sub- 
lime things  without  effort  and  he  often  finishes  them 
by  a  turn  of  pleasantry  which  is  neither  misplaced 
nor  far-fetched.  It  is  at  once  the  "Iliad,"  the 
"Odyssey,"  and  "Don  Quixote,"  for  his  principal 
knight-errant  becomes  mad  like  the  Spanish  hero, 
and  is  infinitely  more  pleasant. 

The  subject  of  the  poem,  which  consists  of  so 
many  things,  is  precisely  that  of  the  romance  of 
"Cassandra,"  which  was  formerly  so  much  in  fash- 
ion with  us,  and  which  has  entirely  lost  its  celebrity 
because  it  had  only  the  length  of  the  ''Orlando  Fu- 
rioso/'  and  few  of  its  beauties,  and  even  the 
few  being  in  French  prose,  five  or  six  stanzas  of 
Ariosto  will  eclipse  them  all.  His  poem  closes  with 
the  greater  part  of  the  heroes  and  princesses  who 
have  not  perished  during  the  war  all  meeting  in 
Paris,  after  a  thousand  adventures,  just  as  the  per- 
sonages in  the  romance  of  "Cassandra"  all  finally 
meet  again  in  the  house  of  Palemon. 

The  "Orlando  Furioso"  possesses  a  merit  un- 
known to  the  ancients — it  is  that  of  its  exordiums. 
Everv  canto  is  like  an  enchanted  palace,  the  vesti- 

Vol.  8—17 


258  Philosophical 

bule  of  which  is  always  in  a  different  taste — some- 
times majestic,  sometimes  simple,  and  even  gro- 
tesque. It  is  moral,  lively,  or  gallant,  and  always 
natural  and  true. 

EPIPHANY. 

The  Manifestation,  the  Appearance,  the  Illustration, 
the  Radiance. 

It  is  not  easy  to  perceive  what  relation  this  word 
can  have  to  the  three  kings  or  magi,  who  came  from 
the  east  under  the  guidance  of  a  star.  That  bril- 
liant star  was  evidently  the  cause  of  bestowing  on 
the  day  of  its  appearance  the  denomination  of  the 
Epiphany. 

It  is  asked  whence  came  these  three  kings  ?  What 
place  had  they  appointed  for  their  rendezvous  ?  One 
of  them,  it  is  said,  came  from  Africa ;  he  did  not, 
then,  come  from  the  East.  It  is  said  they  were  three 
magi,  but  the  common  people  have  always  preferred 
the  interpretation  of  three  kings.  The  feast  of  the 
kings  is  everywhere  celebrated,  but  that  of  the  magi 
nowhere ;  people  eat  king's-cake  and  not  magi-cake, 
and  exclaim  "the  king  drinks" — not  "the  magi 
drink." 

Moreover,  as  they  brought  with  them  much  gold, 
incense,  and  myrrh,  they  must  necessarily  have  been 
persons  of  great  wealth  and  consequence.  The  magi 
of  that  day  were  by  no  means  very  rich.  It  was  not 
then  as  in  the  times  of  the  false  Smerdis. 

Tertullian  is  the  first  who  asserted  that  these 


Dictionary.  "259 

three  travellers  were  kings.  St.  Arobrose,  and  St. 
Csesar  of  Aries,  suppose  them  to  be  kings,  and  the 
following  passages  of  Psalm  Ixxi.  are  quoted  in 
proof  of  it :  "The  kings  of  Tarshish  and  of  the 
isles  shall  offer  him  gifts.  The  kings  of  Arabia  and 
of  Saba  shall  bring  him  presents."  Some  have  called 
these  three  kings  Magalat,  Galgalat,  and  Saraim, 
others  Athos,  Satos,  and  Paratoras.  The  Catholics 
knew  them  under  the  names  of  Gaspard,  Melchior, 
and  Balthazar.  Bishop  Osorio  relates  that  it  was  a 
king  of  Cranganore,  in  the  kingdom  of  Calicut,  who 
undertook  this  journey  with  two  magi,  and  that  this 
king  on  his  return  to  his  own  covmtry  built  a  chapel 
to  the  Holy  \  irgin. 

It  has  been  inquired  how  much  gold  they  gave 
Joseph  and  Mary.  Many  commentators  declare  that 
they  made  them  the  richest  presents ;  they  built  on 
the  authority  of  the  "Gospel  of  the  Infancy,"  which 
states  that  Joseph  and  Mary  were  robbed  in  Egypt 
by  Titus  and  Dumachus,  "but,"  say  they,  "these 
men  would  never  have  robbed  them  if  they  had  not 
had  a  great  deal  of  money."  These  two  robbers 
were  afterwards  hanged ;  one  was  the  good  thief 
and  the  other  the  bad  one.  But  the  "Gospel  of 
Nicodemus"  gives  them  other  names ;  it  calls  them 
Dimas  and  Gestas. 

The  same  "Gospel  of  the  Infancy"  says  that  they 
were  magi  and  not  kings  who  came  to  Bethlehem ; 
that  they  had  in  reality  been  guided  by  a  star,  but 
that  the  star  having  ceased  to  appear  while  they  were 


i6o  Philosophical 

in  the  stable,  .an  angel  made  its  appearance  in  the 
form  of  a  star  to  act  in  its  stead.  This  gospel  as- 
serts that  the  visit  of  the  three  magi  had  been  pre- 
dicted by  Zerdusht,  whom  we  call  Zoroaster, 

Suarez  has  investigated  what  became  of  the  gold 
which  the  three  kings  or  magi  presented ;  he  main- 
tains that  the  amount  must  have  been  very  large,  and 
that  three  kings  could  never  make  a  small  or  mod- 
erate present.  He  says  that  the  whole  sum  was  af- 
terwards given  to  Judas,  who,  acting  as  steward, 
turned  out  a  rogue  and  stole  the  whole  amount. 

All  these  puerilities  can  do  no  harm  to  the  Feast 
of  the  Epiphany,  which  was  first  instituted  by  the 
Greek  Church,  as  the  term  implies,  and  was  after- 
wards celebrated  by  the  Latin  Church, 

EQUALITY. 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  men,  enjoying 
the  faculties  of  their  common  nature,  are  in  a  state 
of  equality ;  they  are  equal  when  they  perform  their 
animal  functions,  and  exercise  their  understandings. 
The  king  of  China,  the  great  mogul,  or  the  Turkish 
pasha  cannot  say  to  the  lowest  of  his  species,  'T 
forbid  you  to  digest  your  food,  to  discharge  your 
faeces,  or  to  think."  All  animals  of  every  species 
are  on  an  equality  with  one  another,  and  animals 
have  by  nature  beyond  ourselves  the  advantages  of 
independence.  If  a  bull,  while  paying  his  attentions 
to  a  heifer,  is  driven  away  by  the  horns  of  another 
bull  stronger  than  himself,  he  goes  to  seek  a  new 


Dictionary.  261 

mistress  in  another  meadow,  and  lives  in  freedom. 
A  cock,  after  being  defeated,  finds  consolation  in 
another  hen-roost.  It  is  not  so  with  us.  A  petty 
vizier  banishes  a  bostangi  to  Lemnos ;  the  vizier 
Azem  banishes  the  petty  vizier  to  Tenedos ;  the 
pasha  banishes  the  vizier  Azem  to  Rhodes ;  the 
janissaries  imprison  the  pasha  and  elect  another 
who  will  banish  the  worthy  Mussulmans  just  when 
and  where  he  pleases,  while  they  will  feel  inexpres- 
sibly obliged  to  him  for  so  gentle  a  display  of  his 
authority. 

If  the  earth  were  in  fact  what  it  might  be  sup- 
posed it  should  be — if  men  found  upon  it  every- 
where an  easy  and  certain  subsistence,  and  a  climate 
congenial  to  their  nature,  it  would  be  evidently  im- 
possible for  one  man  to  subjugate  another.  Let  the 
globe  be  covered  with  wholesome  fruits ;  let  the 
air  on  which  we  depend  for  life  convey  to  us  no  dis- 
eases and  premature  death  ;  let  man  require  no  othei 
lodging  than  the  deer  or  roebuck,  in  that  case  the 
Genghis  Khans  and  Tamerlanes  will  have  no  other 
attendants  than  their  own  children,  who  will  be  very 
worthy  persons,  and  assist  them  affectionately  in 
their  old  age. 

In  that  state  of  nature  enjoyed  by  all  undomes- 
ticated  quadrupeds,  and  by  birds  and  reptiles,  men 
would  be  just  as  happy  as  they  are.  Domination 
would  be  a  mere  chimera — an  absurdity  which  no 
one  would  think  of,  for  why  should  servants  be 
sought  for  when  no  service  is  required? 


262  Philosophical 

If  it  should  enter  the  mind  of  any  individual  of 
a  tyrannical  disposition  and  nervous  arm  to  subju- 
gate his  less  powerful  neighbor,  his  success  would  be 
impossible ;  the  oppressed  would  be  on  the  Danube 
before  the  oppressor  had  completed  his  preparations 
on  the  Volga. 

All  men,  then,  would  necessarily  have  been  equal 
had  they  been  without  wants ;  it  is  the  misery  at- 
tached to  our  species  which  places  one  man  in  sub- 
jection to  another;  inequality  is  not  the  real  griev- 
ance, but  dependence.  It  is  of  little  consequence 
for  one  man  to  be  called  his  highness  and  another  his 
holiness,  but  it  is  hard  for  me  to  be  the  servant  of 
another. 

A  numerous  family  has  cultivated  a  good  soil, 
two  small  neighboring  families  live  on  lands  unpro- 
ductive and  barren.  It  will  therefore  be  necessary 
for  the  two  poor  families  to  serve  the  rich  one,  or  to 
destroy  it.  This  is  easily  accomplished.  One  of  the 
two  indigent  families  goes  and  offers  its  services  to 
the  rich  one  in  exchange  for  bread,  the  other  makes 
an  attack  upon  it  and  is  conquered.  The  serving 
family  is  the  origin  of  domestics  and  laborers,  the 
one  conquered  is  the  origin  of  slaves. 

It  is  impossible  in  our  melancholy  world  to  pre- 
vent men  living  in  society  from  being  divided  into 
two  classes,  one  of  the  rich  who  command,  the  other 
of  the  poor  who  obey,  and  these  two  are  subdivided 
into  various  others,  which  have  also  their  respective 
shades  of  difference. 


Dictionary.  263 

You  come  and  say,  after  the  lots  arc  drawn,  I 
am  a  man  as  well  as  you ;  I  have  two  hands  and 
two  feet ;  as  much  pride  as  yourself,  or  more ;  a 
mind  as  irregular,  inconsequent,  and  contradictory 
as  your  own.  I  am  a  citizen  of  San  Marino,  or  Ra- 
gusa,  or  Vaugirard ;  give  me  my  portion  of  land. 
In  our  known  hemisphere  are  about  fifty  thousand 
millions  of  acres  of  cultivable  land,  good  and  bad. 
The  number  of  our  two-footed,  featherless  race 
within  these  bounds  is  a  thousand  millions ;  that  is 
just  fifty  acres  for  each  :  do  me  justice  ;  give  me  my 
fifty  acres. 

The  reply  is  :  go  and  take  them  among  the  Kaffirs, 
the  Hottentots,  and  the  Samoyeds ;  arrange  the  mat- 
ter amicably  with  them ;  here  all  the  shares  are  filled 
up.  If  you  wish  to  have  food,  clothing,  lodging, 
and  warmth  among  us,  work  for  us  as  your  father 
did — serve  us  or  amuse  us,  and  you  shall  be  paid ;  if 
not,  you  will  be  obliged  to  turn  beggar,  which  would 
be  highly  degrading  to  your  sublime  nature,  and 
certainly  preclude  that  actual  equality  with  kings, 
or  even  village  curates,  to  which  you  so  nobly  pre- 
tend. 

All  the  poor  are  not  unhappy.  The  greater  num- 
ber are  born  in  that  state,  and  constant  labor  pre- 
vents them  from  too  sensibly  feeling  their  situation  ; 
but  when  they  do  strongly  feel  it,  then  follow  wars 
such  as  those  of  the  popular  party  against  the  senate 
at  Rome,  and  those  of  the  peasantry  in  Germany, 
England,  and  France.    All  these  wars  ended  sooner 


264  Philosophical 

or  later  in  the  subjection  of  the  people,  because  the 
great  have  money,  and  money  in  a  state  commands 
everything ;  I  say  in  a  state,  for  the  case  is  different 
between  nation  and  nation.  That  nation  which 
makes  the  best  use  of  iron  will  always  subjugate  an- 
other that  has  more  gold  but  less  courage. 

Every  man  is  born  with  an  eager  inclination  for 
power,  wealth,  and  pleasure,  and  also  with  a  great 
taste  for  indolence.  Every  man,  consequently, 
would  wish  to  possess  the  fortunes  and  the  wives  or 
daughters  of  others,  to  be  their  master,  to  retain 
them  in  subjection  to  his  caprices,  and  to  do  nothing, 
or  at  least  nothing  but  what  is  perfectly  agreeable. 
You  clearly  perceive  that  with  such  amiable  dispo- 
sitions, it  is  as  impossible  for  men  to  be  equal  as  for 
two  preachers  or  divinity  professors  not  to  be  jeal- 
ous of  each  other. 

The  human  race,  constituted  as  it  is,  cannot  exist 
unless  there  be  an  infinite  number  of  useful  individ- 
uals possessed  of  no  property  at  all,  for  most  cer- 
tainly a  man  in  easy  circumstances  will  not  leave  his 
own  land  to  come  and  cultivate  yours ;  and  if  you 
want  a  pair  of  shoes  you  will  not  get  a  lawyer  to 
make  them  for  you.  Equality,  then,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  most  natural  and  the  most  chimerical  thing 
possible. 

As  men  carry  everything  to  excess  if  they  have  it 
in  their  power  to  do  so,  this  inequality  has  been 
pushed  too  far;  it  has  been  maintained  in  many 
countries  that  no  citizen  has  a  right  to  quit  that  in 


.    Dictionary.  265 

which  he  was  born.  The  meaning  of  such  a  law 
must  evidently  be :  "This  country  is  so  wretched 
and  ill-governed  we  prohibit  every  man  from  quit- 
ting it,  under  an  apprehension  that  otherwise  all 
would  leave  it."  Do  better;  excite  in  all  your  sub- 
jects a  desire  to  stay  with  you,  and  in  foreigners  a 
desire  to  come  and  settle  among  you. 

Every  man  has  a  right  to  entertain  a  private  opin- 
ion of  his  own  equality  to  other  men,  but  it  follows 
not  that  a  cardinal's  cook  should  take  it  upon  him 
to  order  his  master  to  prepare  his  dinner.  The  cook, 
however,  may  say :  'T  am  a  man  as  well  as  my  mas- 
ter ;  I  was  born  like  him  in  tears,  and  shall  like  him 
die  in  anguish,  attended  by  the  same  common  cere- 
monies. We  both  perform  the  same  animal  func- 
tions. If  the  Turks  get  possession  of  Rome,  and  I 
then  become  a  cardinal  and  my  master  a  cook,  I  will 
take  him  into  my  service."  This  language  is  per- 
fectly reasonable  and  just,  but,  while  waiting  for 
the  Grand  Turk  to  get  possession  of  Rome,  the  cook 
is  bound  to  do  his  duty,  or  all  human  society  is  sub- 
verted. 

With  respect  to  a  man  who  is  neither  a  cardinal's 
cook  nor  invested  with  any  office  whatever  in  the 
state — with  respect  to  an  individual  who  has  no  con- 
nections, and  is  disgusted  at  being  everywhere  re- 
ceived with  an  air  of  protection  or  contempt,  who 
sees  quite  clearly  that  many  men  of  quality  and  title 
have  not  more  knowledge,  wit,  or  virtue  than  him- 
self, and  is  wearied  by  being  occasionally  in  their 


266  Philosophical 

antechambers — what  ought  such  a  man  to  do?    He 
ought  to  stay  away. 

ESSENIANS. 

The  more  superstitious  and  barbarous  any  na- 
tion is,  the  more  obstinately  bent  on  war,  notwith- 
standing its  defeats ;  the  more  divided  into  factions, 
floating  between  royal  and  priestly  claims ;  and  the 
more  intoxicated  it  may  be  by  fanaticism,  the  more 
certainly  will  be  found  among  that  nation  a  number 
of  citizens  associated  together  in  order  to  live  in 
peace. 

It  happens  during  a  season  of  pestilence  tliat  a 
small  canton  forbids  all  communication  with  large 
cities.  It  preserves  itself  from  the  prevailing  con- 
tagion, but  remains  a  prey  to  other  maladies. 

Of  this  description  of  persons  were  the  Gymnos- 
ophists  in  India,  and  certain  sects  of  philosophers 
among  the  Greeks.  Such  also  were  the  Pythago- 
reans in  Italy  and  Greece,  and  the  Therapeutse  in 
Egypt.  Such  at  the  present  day  are  those  primitive 
people  called  Quakers  and  Dunkards,  in  Pennsylva- 
nia, and  very  nearly  such  were  the  first  Christians 
who  lived  together  remote  from  cities. 

Not  one  of  these  societies  was  acquainted  with  the 
dreadful  custom  of  binding  themselves  by  oath  to 
the  mode  of  life  which  they  adopted,  of  involving 
themselves  in  perpetual  chains,  of  depriving  them- 
selves, on  a  principle  of  religion,  of  the  grand  right 


Dictionary.  267 

and  first  principle  of  human  nature,  which  is  liberty ; 
in  short,  of  entering  into  what  we  call  vows.  St. 
Basil  was  the  first  who  conceived  the  idea  of  those 
vows,  of  this  oath  of  slavery.  He  introduced  a  new 
plague  into  the  world,  and  converted  into  a  poison 
that  which  had  been  invented  as  a  remedy. 

There  were  in  Syria  societies  precisely  similar  to 
those  of  the  Essenians.  This  we  learn  from  the  Jew 
Philo,  in  his  treatise  on  the  "Freedom  of  the  Good." 
Syria  was  always  superstitious  and  factious,  and 
always  under  the  yoke  of  tyrants.  The  successors  of 
Alexander  made  it  a  theatre  of  horrors.  It  is  by 
no  means  extraordinary  that  among  such  numbers 
of  oppressed  and  persecuted  beings,  some,  more  hu- 
mane and  judicious  than  the  rest,  should  withdraw 
from  all  intercourse  with  great  cities,  in  order  to  live 
in  common,  in  honest  poverty,  far  from  the  blasting 
eyes  of  tyranny. 

During  the  civil  wars  of  the  latter  Ptolemies, 
similar  asylums  were  formed  in  Egypt,  and  when 
that  country  was  subjugated  by  the  Roman  arms, 
the  Therapeutse  established  themselves  in  a  seques- 
tered spot  in  the  neighborhood  of  Lake  Mceris. 

It  appears  highly  probable  that  there  were  Greek, 
Egyptian,  and  Jewish  Therapeutae.  Philo,  after  eu- 
logizing Anaxagoras,  Democritus,  and  other  philos- 
ophers, who  embraced  their  way  of  life,  thus  ex- 
presses himself : 

"Similar  societies  are  found  in  many  countries ; 
Greece  and  other  regions  enjoy  institutions  of  this 


268  Philosophical 

consoling  character.  They  are  common  in  Egypt 
in  every  district,  and  particularly  in  that  of  Alexan- 
dria. The  most  worthy  and  moral  of  the  population 
have  withdrawn  beyond  Lake  Moeris  to  a  secluded 
but  convenient  spot,  forming  a  gentle  declivity.  The 
air  is  very  salubrious,  and  the  villages  in  the  neigh- 
borhood sufficiently  numerous,"  etc. 

Thus  we  perceive  that  there  have  everywhere  ex- 
isted societies  of  men  who  have  endeavored  to  find 
a  refuge  from  disturbances  and  factions,  from  the 
insolence  and  rapacity  of  oppressors.  All,  without 
exception,  entertained  a  perfect  horror  of  war,  con- 
sidering it  precisely  in  the  same  light  in  which  we 
contemplate  highway  robbery  and  murder. 

Such,  nearly,  v/ere  the  men  of  letters  who  united 
in  France  and  founded  the  Academy.  They  quietly 
withdrew  from  the  factious  and  cruel  scenes  which 
desolated  the  country  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIIL 
Such  also  were  the  men  who  founded  the  Royal  So- 
ciety at  London,  while  the  barbarous  idiots  called 
Puritans  and  Episcopalians  were  cutting  one  an- 
other's throats  about  the  interpretation  of  a  few 
passages  from  three  or  four  old  and  unintelligible 
books. 

Some  learned  men  have  been  of  opinion  that  Je- 
sus Christ,  who  condescended  to  make  his  appear- 
ance for  some  time  in  the  small  district  of  Caper- 
naum, in  Nazareth,  and  some  other  small  towns  of 
Palestine,  was  one  of  those  Essenians  who  fled  from 
the  tumult  of  affairs  and  cultivated  virtue  in  peace. 


Dictionary.  26g 

But  the  name  "Essenian,"  never  even  once  occurs 
in  the  four  Gospels,  in  the  Apocrypha,  or  in  the 
Acts,  or  the  Epistles  of  the  apostles. 

Although,  however,  the  name  is  not  to  be  found, 
a  resemblance  is  in  various  points  observable — con- 
fraternity, community  of  property,  strictness  of 
moral  conduct,  manual  labor,  detachment  from 
wealth  and  honors ;  and,  above  all,  detestation  of 
war.  So  great  is  this  detestation,  that  Jesus  Christ 
commands  his  disciples  when  struck  upon  one  cheek 
to  offer  the  other  also,  and  when  robbed  of  a  cloak 
to  deliver  up  the  coat  likewise.  Upon  this  principle 
the  Christians  conducted  themselves,  during  the  two 
first  centuries,  without  altars,  temples,  or  magistra- 
cies— all  employed  in  their  respective  trades  or  oc- 
cupations, all  leading  secluded  and  quiet  lives. 

Their  early  writings  attest  that  they  were  not 
permitted  to  carry  arms.  In  this  they  perfectly  re- 
sembled our  Quakers,  Anabaptists,  and  Mennonites 
of  the  present  day,  who  take  a  pride  in  following 
the  literal  meaning  of  the  gospel.  For  although 
there  are  in  the  gospel  many  passages  which,  when 
incorrectly  understood,  might  breed  violence — as  the 
case  of  the  merchants  scourged  out  of  the  temple 
avenues,  the  phrase  "compel  them  to  come  in,"  the 
dangers  into  which  they  were  thrown  who  had  not 
converted  their  master's  one  talent  into  five  talents, 
and  the  treatment  of  those  who  came  to  the  wedding 
without  the  wedding  garment — although,  I  say,  all 
these  may  seem  contrar}^  to  the  pacific  spirit  of  the 


270  Philosophical 

gospel,  yet  there  are  so  many  other  passages  which 
enjoin  sufferance  instead  of  contest,  that  it  is  by  no 
means  astonishing  that,  for  a  period  of  two  hundred 
years.  Christians  held  war  in  absolute  execration. 

Upon  this  foundation  was  the  numerous  and  re- 
spectable society  of  Pennsylvanians  established,  as 
were  also  the  minor  sects  which  have  imitated  them. 
When  I  denominate  them  respectable,  it  is  by  no 
means  in  consequence  of  their  aversion  to  the  splen- 
dor of  the  Catholic  church.  I  lament,  undoubtedly, 
as  I  ought  to  do,  their  errors.  It  is  their  virtue, 
their  modesty,  and  their  spirit  of  peace,  that  I  re- 
spect. 

Was  not  the  great  philosopher  Bayle  right,  then, 
when  he  remarked  that  a  Christian  of  the  earliest 
times  of  our  religion  would  be  a  very  bad  soldier, 
or  that  a  soldier  would  be  a  very  bad  Christian  ? 

This  dilemma  appears  to  be  unanswerable ;  and 
in  this  point,  in  my  opinion,  consists  the  great  dif- 
ference between  ancient  Christianity  and  ancient 
Judaism. 

The  law  of  the  first  Jews  expressly  says,  "As 
soon  as  you  enter  any  country  with  a  view  to  possess 
it,  destroy  everything  by  fire  and  sword  ;  slay,  with- 
out mercy,  aged  men,  women,  and  children  at  the 
breast ;  kill  even  all  the  animals ;  sack  everything 
and  burn  everything.  It  is  your  God  who  com- 
mands you  so  to  do."  This  injunction  is  not  given 
in  a  single  instance,  but  on  twenty  different  occa- 
sions, and  is  always  followed. 


Dictionary.  271 

Mahomet,  persecuted  by  the  people  of  Mecca,  de- 
fends himself  like  a  brave  man.  He  compels  his 
vanquished  persecutors  to  humble  themselves  at  his 
feet,  and  become  his  disciples.  He  establishes  his 
religion  by  proselytism  and  the  sword. 

Jesus,  appearing  between  the  times  of  Moses  and 
Mahomet,  in  a  corner  of  Galilee,  preaches  forgive- 
ness of  injuries,  patience,  mildness,  and  forbearance, 
dies  himself  under  the  infliction  of  capital  punish- 
ment, and  is  desirous  of  the  same  fate  for  His  first 
disciples. 

I  ask  candidly,  whether  St.  Bartholomew,  St. 
Andrew,  St.  Matthew,  and  St.  Barnabas,  would 
have  been  received  among  the  cuirassiers  of  the  em- 
peror, or  among  the  royal  guards  of  Charles  XH.? 

Would  St.  Peter  himself,  though  he  cut  off  Mal- 
chus'  ear,  have  made  a  good  officer?  Perhaps  St. 
Paul,  accustomed  at  first  to  carnage,  and  having  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  a  bloody  persecutor,  is  the  only 
one  who  could  have  been  made  a  warrior.  The  im- 
petuosity of  his  temperament  and  the  fire  of  his 
imagination  would  have  made  him  a  formidable 
commander.  But,  notwithstanding  these  qualities, 
he  made  no  effort  to  revenge  himself  on  Gamaliel  by 
arms.  He  did  not  act  like  the  Judases,  the  Theu- 
dases,  and  the  Barchochebases,  who  levied  troops : 
he  followed  the  precepts  of  Jesus  Christ ;  he  suf- 
fered ;  and,  according  to  an  account  we  have  of  his 
death,  he  was  beheaded. 

To  compose  an  army  of  Christians,  therefore,  in 


272  Philosophical 

the  early  period  of  Christianity,  was  a  contradiction 
in  terms. 

It  is  certain  that  Christians  were  not  enlisted 
among  the  troops  of  the  empire  till  the  spirit  by 
which  they  were  animated  was  changed.  In  the 
first  two  centuries  they  entertained  a  horror  for 
temples,  altars,  tapers,  incense,  and  lustra!  water. 
Porphyry  compares  them  to  the  foxes  who  said  "the 
grapes  are  sour."  "If,"  said  he,  "you  could  have 
had  beautiful  temples  burnished  with  gold,  and 
large  revenues  for  a  clergy,  you  would  then  have 
been  passionately  fond  of  temples."  They  after- 
wards addicted  themselves  to  all  that  they  had  ab- 
horred. Thus,  having  detested  the  profession  of 
arms,  they  at  length  engaged  in  war.  The  Chris- 
tians in  the  time  of  Diocletian  were  as  different  from 
those  of  the  time  of  the  apostles,  as  we  are  from  the 
Christians  of  the  third  centur3^ 

I  cannot  conceive  how  a  mind  so  enlightened  and 
bold  as  Montesquieu's  could  severely  censure  an- 
other genius  much  more  accurate  than  his  own,  and 
oppose  the  following  just  remark  made  by  Ba)de : 
"a  society  of  real  Christians  might  live  happily  to- 
gether, but  they  would  make  a  bad  defence  on  being 
attacked  by  an  enemy." 

"They  would,"  says  Montesquieu,  "be  citizens  in- 
finitely enlightened  on  the  subject  of  their  duties, 
and  ardently  zealous  to  discharge  them.  They 
would  be  fully  sensible  of  the  rights  of  natural  de- 
fence.   The  more  they  thought  they  owed  religion, 


Dictionary.  273 

the  more  they  would  think  they  owed  their  country. 
The  principles  of  Christianity  deeply  engraved  on 
their  hearts  would  be  infinitely  more  powerful  than 
the  false  honor  of  monarchies,  the  human  virtues  of 
republics,  or  the  servile  fear  which  operates  under 
despotism." 

Surely  the  author  of  the  "Spirit  of  Laws"  did  not 
reflect  upon  the  words  of  the  gospel,  w^hen  saying 
that  real  Christians  would  be  fully  sensible  of  the 
rights  of  natural  defence.  He  did  not  recollect  the 
command  to  deliver  up  the  coat  after  the  cloak  had 
been  taken ;  and,  after  having  received  a  blow  upon 
one  cheek,  to  present  the  other  also.  Here  the  prin- 
ciple of  natural  defence  is  most  decidedly  annihi- 
lated. Those  whom  w-e  call  Quakers  have  always 
refused  to  fight ;  but  in  the  war  of  1756,  if  they  had 
not  received  assistance  from  the  other  English,  and 
suffered  that  assistance  to  operate,  they  would  have 
been  completely  crushed. 

Is  it  not  unquestionable  that  men  who  thought 
and  felt  as  martyrs  would  fight  very  ill  as  grena- 
diers? Every  sentence  of  that  chapter  of  the  "Spirit 
of  Laws"  appears  to  me  false.  "The  principles  of 
Christianity  deeply  engraved  on  their  hearts,  would 
be  infinitely  more  powerful,"  etc.  Yes,  more  pow^er- 
ful  to  prevent  their  exercise  of  the  sword,  to  make 
them  tremble  at  shedding  their  neighbor's  blood,  to 
make  them  look  on  life  as  a  burden  of  which  it 
would  be  their  highest  happiness  to  be  relieved. 

"If,"  says  Bayle,  "they  were  appointed  to  drive 
Vol.  8—18 


274  Philosophical 

back  veteran  corps  of  infantry,  or  to  charge  regi- 
ments of  cuirassiers,  they  would  be  seen  Hke  sheep 
in  the  midst  of  wolves." 

Bayle  was  perfectly  right.  Montesquieu  did  not 
perceive  that,  while  attempting  to  refute  him,  he 
contemplated  only  the  mercenary  and  sanguinary 
soldiers  of  the  present  day,  and  not  the  early  Chris- 
tians. It  would  seem  as  if  he  had  been  desirous  of 
preventing  the  unjust  accusations  which  he  experi- 
enced from  the  fanatics,  by  sacrificnig  Bayle  to 
them.  But  he  gained  nothing  by  it.  They  are  two 
great  men,  who  appear  to  be  of  different  opinions, 
but  who.  if  they  had  been  equally  free  to  speak, 
would  have  been  found  to  have  the  same. 

"The  false  honor  of  monarchies,  the  human  vir- 
tues of  republics,  the  servile  fear  which  operates 
under  despotism ;"  nothing  at  all  of  this  goes  to- 
wards the  composition  of  a  soldier,  as  the  "Spirit  of 
Laws"  pretends.  When  we  levy  a  regiment,  of 
whom  a  quarter  part  will  desert  in  the  course  of  a 
fortnight,  not  one  of  the  men  enlisted  thinks  about 
the  honor  of  the  monarchy :  they  do  not  even  know 
what  it  is.  The  mercenary  troops  of  the  republic  of 
Venice  know  their  country ;  but  nothing  about  re- 
publican virtue,  which  no  one  ever  speaks  of  in  the 
place  of  St.  Mark.  In  one  word,  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  a  single  man  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
who  has  enlisted  in  his  regiment  from  a  principle  of 
virtue. 

Neither,  again,  is  it  out  of  a  servile  fear  that 


Dictionary.  275 

Turks  and  Russians  fight  with  the  fierceness  and 
rage  of  lions  and  tigers.  Fear  does  not  inspire  cour- 
age. Nor  is  it  by  devotion  that  the  Russians  have 
defeated  the  armies  of  Mustapha.  It  would,  in  my 
opinion,  have  been  highly  desirable  that  so  ingenious 
a  man  should  have  sought  for  truth  rather  than  dis- 
play. When  we  wish  to  instruct  mankind,  we  ought 
to  forget  ourselves,  and  have  nothing  in  view  but 
truth. 

ETERNITY. 

In  my  youth  I  admired  all  the  reasonings  of 
Samuel  Clarke.  I  loved  his  person,  although  he  was 
a  determined  Arian  as  well  as  Newton,  and  I  still  re- 
vere his  memory,  because  he  was  a  good  man ;  but 
the  impression  which  his  ideas  had  stamped  on  my 
yet  tender  brain  was  effaced  when  that  brain  be- 
came more  firm.  I  found,  for  example,  that  he  had 
contested  the  eternity  of  the  world  wath  as  little 
ability  as  he  had  proved  the  reality  of  infinite  space. 

I  have  so  much  respect  for  the  Book  of  Gene- 
sis, and  for  the  church  which  adopts  it,  that  I  re- 
gard it  as  the  only  proof  of  the  creation  of  the  world 
five  thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighteen  years  ago, 
according  to  the  computation  of  the  Latins,  and 
seven  thousand  and  seventy-eight  years,  according 
to  the  Greeks.  All  antiquity  believed  matter,  at 
least,  to  be  eternal ;  and  the  greatest  philosophers 
attributed  eternity  also  to  the  arrangement  of  the 
universe. 


276  Philosophical 

They  are  all  mistaken,  as  we  well  know ;  but  we 
may  believe,  without  blasphemy,  that  the  eternal 
Former  of  all  things  made  other  worlds  besides  ours. 

EUCHARIST. 

On  this  delicate  subject,  we  shall  not  speak  as 
theologians.  Submitting  in  heart  and  mind  to  the 
religion  in  which  we  are  born,  and  the  laws  under 
which  we  live,  we  shall  have  nothing  to  do  with 
controversy;  it  is  too  hostile  to  all  religions  which 
it  boasts  of  supporting — to  all  laws  which  it  makes 
pretensions  to  explain,  and  especially  to  that  har- 
mony which  in  every  period  it  has  banished  from 
the  world. 

One-half  of  Europe  anathematizes  the  other  on 
the  subject  of  the  Eucharist ;  and  blood  has  flowed 
in  torrents  from  the  Baltic  Sea  to  the  foot  of  the 
Pyrenees,  for  nearly  two  centuries,  on  account  of  a 
single  word,  which  signifies  gentle  charity. 

Various  nations  in  this  part  of  the  world  view 
with  horror  the  system  of  transubstantiation.  They 
exclaim  against  this  dogma  as  the  last  effort  of  hu- 
man folly.  They  quote  the  celebrated  passage  of 
Cicero,  who  says  that  men,  having  exhausted  all  the 
mad  extravagancies  they  are  capable  of,  have  yet 
never  entertained  the  idea  of  eating  the  God  whom 
they  adore.  They  say  that  as  almost  all  popular 
opinions  are  built  upon  ambiguities  and  abuse  of 
words,  so  the  system  of  the  Roman  Catholics  con- 
cerning   the    Eucharist    and    transubstantiation    is 


Dictionary.  277 

founded  solely  on  an  ambiguity ;  that  they  have  in- 
terpreted literally  what  could  only  have  been  meant 
figuratively;  and  that  for  the  sake  of  mere  verbal 
contests,  for  absolute  misconceptions,  the  world  has 
for  six  hundred  years  been  drenched  in  blood. 

Their  preachers  in  the  pulpits,  their  learned  in 
their  publications,  and  the  people  in  their  conversa- 
tional discussions,  incessantly  repeat  that  Jesus 
Christ  did  not  take  His  body  in  His  two  hands  to 
give  His  disciples  to  eat ;  that  a  body  cannot  be  in 
a  hundred  thousand  places  at  one  time,  in  bread  and 
in  wine ;  that  the  God  who  formed  the  universe 
cannot  consist  of  bread  which  is  converted  into 
fseces,  and  of  wine  which  flows  off  in  urine ;  and 
that  the  doctrine  may  naturally  expose  Christianity 
to  the  derision  of  the  least  intelligent,  and  to  the 
contempt  and  execration  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 

In  this  opinion  the  Tillotsons,  the  Smallridges, 
the  Claudes,  the  Dailies,  the  Amyrauts,  the  Mes- 
trezats,  the  Dumoulins,  the  Blondels,  and  the  num- 
berless multitude  of  the  reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  are  all  agreed ;  while  the  peaceable  Ma- 
hometan, master  of  Africa,  and  of  the  finest  part  of 
Asia,  smiles  with  disdain  upon  our  disputes,  and 
the  rest  of  the  world  are  totally  ignorant  of  them. 

Once  again  I  repeat  that  I  have  nothing  to  do 
with  controversy.  I  believe  with  a  lively  faith  all 
that  the  Catholic  apostolic  religion  teaches  on  the 
subject  of  the  Eucharist,  without  comprehending  a 
single  word  of  it. 


278  Philosophical 

The  question  is,  how  to  put  the  greatest  restraint 
upon  crimes.  The  Stoics  said  that  they  carried 
God  in  their  hearts.  Such  is  the  expression  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  and  Epictetus,  the  most  virtuous  of 
mankind,  and  who  might  almost  be  called  gods  upon 
earth.  They  understood  by  the  words  "I  carry  God 
within  me,"  that  part  of  the  divine  universal  soul 
which  animates  every  intelligent  being. 

The  Catholic  religion  goes  further.  It  says,  "You 
shall  have  within  you  physically  what  the  Stoics  had 
metaphysically.  Do  not  set  yourselves  about  inquir- 
ing what  it  is  that  I  give  you  to  eat  and  drink,  or 
merely  to  eat.  Only  believe  that  what  I  so  give  you 
is  God.  He  is  within  you.  Shall  your  heart  then 
be  defiled  by  anything  unjust  or  base?  Behold  then 
men  receiving  God  within  them,  in  the  midst  of  an 
august  ceremonial,  by  the  light  of  a  hundred  tapers, 
under  the  influence  of  the  most  exquisite  and  en- 
chanting music,  and  at  the  footstool  of  an  altar  of 
burnished  gold.  The  imagination  is  led  captive,  the 
soul  is  rapt  in  ecstasy  and  melted !  The  votary 
scarcely  breathes ;  he  is  detached  from  every  ter- 
restrial object,  he  is  united  with  God,  He  is  in  our 
flesh,  and  in  our  blood !  Who  will  dare,  or  who 
even  will  be  able,  after  this,  to  commit  a  single 
fault,  or  to  entertain  even  the  idea  of  it?  It  was 
clearly  impossible  to  devise  a  mystery  better  calcu- 
lated to  retain  mankind  in  virtue." 

Yet  Louis  XL,  while  receiving  God  thus  within 
him,  poisons  his  own  brother;    the  archbishop  of 


Dictionary.  279 

Florence,  while  making  God,  and  the  Pazzi  while 
receiving  Him,  assassinate  the  Medici  in  the  cathe- 
dral. Pope  Alexander  VI.,  after  rising  from  the 
bed  of  his  bastard  daughter,  administers  God  to 
Caesar  Borgia,  his  bastard  son,  and  both  destroy  by 
hanging,  poison,  and  the  sword,  all  who  are  in  pos- 
session of  two  acres  of  land  which  they  find  desir- 
able. 

Julius  II.  makes  and  eats  God;  but,  with  his 
cuirass  on  his  back  and  his  helmet  on  his  head,  he 
imbrues  his  hands  in  blood  and  carnage.  Leo  X. 
contains  God  in  his  body,  his  mistress  in  his  arms, 
and  the  money  extorted  by  the  sale  of  indulgences, 
in  his  own  and  his  sister's  coffers. 

Trolle,  archbishop  of  Upsala,  has  the  senators  of 
Sweden  slaughtered  before  his  face,  holding  a  papal 
bull  in  his  hand.  Von  Galen,  bishop  of  Miinster, 
makes  war  upon  all  his  neighbors,  and  becomes  cele- 
brated for  his  rapine. 

The  Abbe  N is  full  of  God,  speaks  of  noth- 
ing but  God,  imparts  God  to  all  the  w^omen,  or  weak 
and  imbecile  persons  that  he  can  obtain  the  direction 
of,  and  robs  his  penitents  of  their  property. 

What  are  we  to  conclude  from  these  contradic- 
tions? That  all  these  persons  never  really  believed 
in  God ;  that  they  still  less,  if  possible,  believed  that 
they  had  eaten  His  body  and  drunk  His  blood  ;  that 
they  never  imagined  they  had  swallowed  God ;  that 
if  they  had  firmly  so  believed,  they  never  would  have 
committed   anv   of   those   deliberate   crimes ;     in   a 


28o  Philosophical 

word,  that  this  most  miraculous  preventive  of  hu- 
man atrocities  has  been  most  ineffective  ?  The  more 
sublime  such  an  idea,  the  more  decidedly  is  it  se- 
cretly rejected  by  human  obstinacy. 

The  fact  is,  that  all  our  grand  criminals  who  have 
been  at  the  head  of  government,  and  those  also  who 
have  subordinately  shared  in  authority,  not  only 
never  believed  that  they  received  God  down  their 
throats,  but  never  believed  in  God  at  all ;  at  least 
they  had  entirely  effaced  such  an  idea  from  their 
minds.  Their  contempt  for  the  sacrament  which 
they  created  or  administered  was  extended  at  length 
into  a  contempt  of  God  Himself.  What  resource, 
then,  have  we  remaining  against  depredation,  inso- 
lence, outrage,  calumny,  and  persecution?  That  of 
persuading  the  strong  man  who  oppresses  the  weak 
that  God  really  exists.  He  will,  at  least,  not  laugh 
at  this  opinion ;  and,  although  he  may  not  believe 
that  God  is  within  him,  he  yet  may  believe  that  God 
pervades  all  nature.  An  incomprehensible  mystery 
has  shocked  him.  But  would  he  be  able  to  say  that 
the  existence  of  a  remunerating  and  avenging  God 
is  an  incomprehensible  mystery?  Finallji'j  although 
he  does  not  yield  his  belief  to  a  Catholic  bishop  who 
says  to  him,  "Behold,  that  is  your  God,  whom  a  man 
consecrated  by  myself  has  put  into  your  mouth;" 
he  may  believe  the  language  of  all  the  stars  and  of 
all  animated  beings,  at  once  exclaiming:  "God  is 
our  creator!" 


Dictionary.  281 

EXECUTION. 

SECTION    I. 

Yes,  we  here  repeat  the  observation,  a  man  that 
is  hanged  is  good  for  nothing ;  although  some  exe- 
cutioner, as  much  addicted  to  quackery  as  cruelty, 
may  have  persuaded  the  wretched  simpletons  in  his 
neighborhood  that  the  fat  of  a  person  hanged  is  a 
cure  for  the  epilepsy. 

Cardinal  Richelieu,  when  going  to  Lyons  to  en- 
joy the  spectacle  of  the  execution  of  Cinq-Mars 
and  de  Thou,  was  informed  that  the  executioner  had 
broken  his  leg.  "What  a  dreadful  thing  it  is,"  says 
he  to  the  chancellor  Seguier,  "we  have  no  execu- 
tioner!" I  certainly  admit  that  it  must  have  been 
a  terrible  disaster.  It  was  a  jewel  wanting  in  his 
crown.  At  last,  however,  an  old  worthy  was  found, 
who,  after  twelve  strokes  of  the  sabre,  brought  low 
the  head  of  the  innocent  and  philosophic  de  Thou= 
What  necessity  required  this  death?  What  good 
could  be  derived  from  the  judicial  assassination  of 
Marshal  de  Marillac? 

I  will  go  farther.  If  Maximilian,  duke  of  Sully, 
had  not  compelled  that  admirable  King  Henry  IV. 
to  yield  to  the  execution  of  Marshal  Biron,  who  was 
covered  with  wounds  which  had  been  received  in 
his  service,  perhaps  Henry  would  never  have  suf- 
fered assassination  himself ;  perhaps  that  act  of 
clemency,  judiciously  interposed  after  condemna- 
tion, would  have  soothed  the  still  raging  spirit  of 


•282  Philosophical 

the  league ;  perhaps  the  outcry  would  not  then  have 
been  incessantly  thundered  into  the  ears  of  the  popu- 
lace— the  king  always  protects  heretics,  the  king 
treats  good  Catholics  shamefully,  the  king  is  a 
miser,  the  king  is  an  old  debauchee,  who,  at  the  age 
of  fifty-seven  fell  in  love  with  the  young  princess  of 
Conde,  and  forced  her  husband  to  fly  the  kingdom 
with  her.  All  these  embers  of  universal  discontent 
would  probably  not  have  been  alone  sufficient  to  in- 
flame the  brain  of  the  fanatical  Feuillant,  Ravaillac. 

With  respect  to  what  is  ordinarily  called  justice, 
that  is,  the  practice  of  kilHng  a  man  because  he  has 
stolen  a  crown  from  his  master ;  or  burning  him, 
as  was  the  case  with  Simon  Morin,  for  having  said 
that  he  had  had  conferences  with  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
and  as  was  the  case  also  with  a  mad  old  Jesuit  of  the 
name  of  Alalagrida,  for  having  printed  certain  con- 
versations which  the  holy  virgin  held  with  St.  Anne, 
her  mother,  while  in  the  womb — this  practice,  it 
must  be  acknowledged,  is  neither  conformable  to  hu- 
manity or  reason,  and  cannot  possibly  be  of  the  least 
utility. 

We  have  already  inquired  what  advantage  could 
ensue  to  the  state  from  the  execution  of  that  poor 
man  known  under  the  name  of  the  madman ;  who, 
while  at  supper  with  some  monks,  uttered  certain 
nonsensical  words,  and  who,  instead  of  being  purged 
and  bled,  was  delivered  over  to  the  gallows  ? 

We  further  ask,  whether  it  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary that  another  madman,  who  was  in  the  body- 


Dictionary.  283 

guards,  and  who  gave  himself  some  sHght  cuts  with 
a  hanger,  hke  many  ofner  impostors,  to  obtain  re- 
muneration, should  be  also  hanged  by  the  sentence 
of  the  parliament  ?  \\^as  this  a  crime  of  such  great 
enormity?  Would  there  have  been  any  imminent 
danger  to  society  in  saving  the  life  of  this  man? 

What  necessity  could  there  be  that  La  Barre 
should  have  his  liand  chopped  off  and  his  tongue 
cut  out,  that  he  should  be  put  to  the  question  ordi- 
nary and  extraordinary,  and  be  burned  alive  ?  Such 
was  the  sentence  pronounced  by  the  Solons  and  Ly- 
curguses  of  Abbeville !  What  had  he  done  ?  Had 
he  assassinated  his  father  and  mother  ?  Had  people 
reason  to  apprehend  that  he  would  burn  down  the 
city  ?  He  was  accused  of  want  of  reverence  in  some 
secret  circumstances,  which  the  sentence  itself  does 
not  specify.  He  had.  it  was  said,  sung  an  old  song, 
of  which  no  one  could  give  an  account ;  and  had 
seen  a  procession  of  capuchins  pass  at  a  distance 
without  saluting  it. 

It  certainly  appears  as  if  some  people  took  great 
delight  in  what  Boileau  calls  murdering  their  neigh- 
bor in  due  form  and  ceremony,  and  inflicting  on  him 
unutterable  torments.  These  people  live  in  the 
forty-ninth  degree  of  latitude,  which  is  precisely  the 
position  of  the  Iroquois.  Let  us  hope  that  they  may, 
some  time  or  other,  become  civilized. 

Among  this  nation  of  barbarians,  there  are  always 
to  be  found  two  or  three  thousand  persons  of  great 
kindness  and  amiability,  possessed  of  correct  taste. 


284  Philosophical 

and  constituting  excellent  society.  These  will,  at 
length,  polish  the  others. 

I  should  like  to  ask  those  who  are  so  fond  of 
erecting  gibbets,  piles,  and  scaffolds,  and  pouring 
leaden  balls  through  the  human  brain,  whether  they 
are  always  laboring  under  the  horrors  of  famine, 
and  whether  they  kill  their  fellow-creatures  from 
any  apprehension  that  there  are  more  of  them  than 
can  be  maintained  ? 

I  was  once  perfectly  horror-struck  at  seeing  a 
list  of  deserters  made  out  for  the  short  period  merely 
of  eight  years.  They  amounted  to  sixty  thousand. 
Here  were  sixty  thousand  co-patriots,  who  were  to 
be  shot  through  the  head  at  the  beat  of  drum ;  and 
with  whom,  if  well  maintained  and  ably  commanded, 
a  whole  province  might  have  been  added  to  the  king- 
dom. 

I  would  also  ask  some  of  these  subaltern  Dracos, 
whether  there  are  no  such  things  wanted  in  their 
country  as  highways  or  crossways,  whether  there 
are  no  uncultivated  lands  to  be  broken  up,  and 
whether  men  who  are  hanged  or  shot  can  be  of  any 
service  ? 

I  will  not  address  them  on  the  score  of  humanity, 
but  of  utility :  unfortunately,  they  will  often  attend 
to  neither;  and,  although  M.  Beccaria  met  with  the 
applauses  of  Europe  for  having  proved  that  punish- 
ments ought  only  to  be  proportioned  to  crimes,  the 
Iroquois  soon  found  out  an  advocate,  paid  by  a 
priest,  who  maintained  that  to  torture,  hang,  rack. 


Dictionary.  285 

and  burn  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  was  decidedly  the 
best  way. 

SECTION    II. 

But  it  is  England  which,  more  than  any  other 
country,  has  been  distinguished  for  the  stern  de- 
light of  slaughtering  men  with  the  pretended  sword 
of  the  law.  Without  mentioning  the  immense  num- 
ber of  princes  of  the  blood,  peers  of  the  realm,  and 
eminent  citizens,  who  have  perished  by  a  public 
death  on  the  scaffold,  it  is  sufficient  to  call  to  mind 
the  execution  of  Queen  Anne  Boleyn,  Queen  Cath- 
erine Howard,  Lady  Jane  Grey,  Queen  Mar}^  Stuart, 
and  King  Charles  I.,  in  order  to  justify  the  sarcasm 
which  has  been  frequently  applied,  that  the  history 
of  England  ought  to  be  written  by  the  executioner. 

Next  to  that  island,  it  is  alleged  that  France  is 
the  country  in  which  capital  punishments  have  been 
most  common.  I  shall  say  nothing  of  that  of  Queen 
Brunehaut,  for  I  do  not  believe  it.  I  pass  by  in- 
numerable scaffolds,  and  stop  before  that  of  Count 
Montecuculi,  who  was  cut  into  quarters  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Francis  I.  and  his  whole  court,  because 
Francis,  the  dauphin,  had  died  of  pleurisy. 

That  event  occurred  in  1536.  Charles  V.,  vic- 
torious on  all  the  coasts  of  Europe  and  Africa,  was 
then  ravaging  both  Provence  and  Picardy.  During 
that  campaign  which  commenced  advantageously  for 
him,  the  young  dauphin,  eighteen  years  of  age,  be- 
comes heated  at  a  game  of  tennis,  in  the  small  city 


286  Philosophical 

of  Tournon.  When  in  high  perspiration  he  drinks 
iced  water,  and  in  the  course  of  five  days  dies  of  the 
pleurisy.  The  whole  court  and  all  P'rance  exclaim 
that  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  had  caused  the  dau- 
phin of  France  to  be  poisoned.  This  accusation, 
equally  horrible  and  absurd,  has  been  repeated  from 
time  to  time  down  to  the  present.  Malherbe,  in  one 
of  his  odes,  speaks  of  Francis,  whom  Castile,  un- 
equal to  cope  with  in  arms,  bereaved  of  his  son. 

We  will  not  stop  to  examine  whether  the  em- 
peror was  unequal  to  the  arms  of  Francis  L,  because 
he  left  Provence  after  having  completely  sacked  it, 
nor  whether  to  poison  a  dauphin  is  to  steal  him ;  but 
these  bad  lines  decidedly  show  that  the  poisoning  of 
the  dauphin  Francis  by  Charles  V.  was  received 
throughout  France  as  an  indisputable  truth. 

Daniel  does  not  exculpate  the  emperor.  Renault, 
in  his  "Chronological  Summary,"  says:  "Francis, 
the  dauphin,  poisoned."  It  is  thus  that  all  writers 
copy  from  one  another.  At  length  the  author  of  the 
"History  of  Francis  I."  ventures,  like  myself,  to  in- 
vestigate the  fact. 

It  is  certain  that  Count  Montecuculi,  who  was  in 
the  service  of  the  dauphin,  was  condemned  by  cer- 
tain commissioners  to  be  quartered,  as  guilty  of  hav- 
ing poisoned  that  prince. 

Historians  say  that  this  Montecuculi  was  his  cup- 
bearer. The  dauphins  have  no  such  officer :  but  I 
will  admit  that  they  had.  How  could  that  gentle- 
man, just  at  the  instant,  have  mixed  up  poison  in  a 


F^RANICIS      I.     AND      HIS      SISTI^R 


Dictionary.  287 

glass  of  fresh  water?  Did  he  always  carry  poison  in 
his  pocket,  ready  whenever  his  master  might  call  for 
drink?  He  was  not  the  only  person  present  with 
the  dauphin,  who  was,  it  appears,  wiped  and  rubbed 
dry  by  some  of  his  attendants  after  the  game  of  ten- 
nis was  finished.  The  surgeons  who  opened  the 
body  declared,  it  is  said,  that  the  prince  had  taken 
arsenic.  Had  the  prince  done  so,  he  must  have  felt 
intolerable  pains  about  his  throat,  the  water  would 
have  been  colored,  and  the  case  would  not  have  been 
treated  as  one  of  pleurisy.  The  surgeons  were  ig- 
norant pretenders,  who  said  just  what  they  were  de- 
sired to  say ;  a  fact  which  happens  every  day. 

What  interest  could  this  officer  have  in  destroy- 
ing his  master?  Who  was  more  likely  to  advance 
his  fortune?  But,  it  is  said,  it  was  intended  also  to 
poison  the  king.  Here  is  a  new  difficulty  and  a  new 
improbability. 

Who  was  to  compensate  him  for  this  double 
crime?  Charles  V.,  it  is  replied — another  improb- 
ability equally  strong.  Why  begin  with  a  youth 
only  eighteen  years  and  a  half  old,  and  who,  more- 
over, had  two  brothers?  How  was  the  king  to  be 
got  at?    Montecuculi  did  not  wait  at  his  table. 

Charles  V.  had  nothing  to  gain  by  taking  away 
the  life  of  the  young  dauphin,  who  had  never  drawai 
a  swoid,  and  who  certainly  would  have  had  power- 
ful avengers.  It  would  have  been  a  crime  at  once 
base  and  useless.  He  did  not  fear  the  father,  we 
are  to  believe,  the  bravest  knight  of  the   French 


288  Philosophical 

court;  yet  he  was  afraid  of  the  son,  who  had 
scarcely  reached  beyond  the  age  of  childhood ! 

But,  we  are  informed,  this  Montecuculi,  on  the 
occasion  of  a  journey  to  Ferrara,  his  own  country, 
was  presented  to  the  emperor,  and  that  that  mon- 
arch asked  him  numerous  questions  relating  to  the 
magnificence  of  the  king's  table  and  the  economy  of 
his  household.  This  certainly  is  decisive  evidence 
that  the  Italian  was  engaged  by  Charles  V.  to  poison 
the  royal  family! 

Oh!  but  it  was  not  the  emperor  himself  who 
urged  him  to  commit  this  crime :  he  was  impelled  to 
it  by  Anthony  de  Leva  and  the  Marquis  di  Gon- 
zaga.  Yes,  truly,  Anthony  de  Leva,  eighty  years 
of  age,  and  one  of  the  most  virtuous  knights  in 
Europe!  and  this  noble  veteran,  moreover,  was  in- 
discreet enough  to  propose  executing  this  scheme  of 
poisoning  in  conjunction  with  a  prince  of  Gonzaga. 
Others  mention  the  ]\Iarquis  del  Vasto,  whom  we 
call  du  Gast.  Contemptible  impostors!  Be  at 
least  agreed  among  yourselves.  You  say  that  Mon- 
tecuculi confessed  the  fact  before  his  judges.  Have 
you  seen  the  original  documents  connected  with  the 
trial  ? 

You  state  that  the  unfortunate  man  was  a  chem- 
ist. These  then  are  your  only  proofs,  your  onl}' 
reasons,  for  subjecting  him  to  the  most  dreadful  of 
executions :  he  was  an  Italian,  he  was  a  chemist, 
and  Charles  V.  was  hated.  His  glory  then  provoked 
indeed  a  base  revenge.     Good  God !     Your  court 


Dictionary.  289 

orders  a  man  of  rank  to  be  cut  into  quarters  upon 
bare  suspicion,  in  the  vain  hope  of  disgracing  that 
powerful  emperor. 

Some  time  afterwards  your  suspicions,  always 
light  and  volatile,  charge  this  poisoning  upon  Cath- 
erine de  Medici,  wife  of  Henry  II.,  then  dauphin 
and  subsequently  king  of  France.  You  say  that,  in 
order  to  reign,  she  destroyed  by  poison  the  first  dau- 
phin, who  stood  between  her  husband  and  the 
throne.  Miserable  impostors!  Once  again,  I  say, 
be  consistent !  Catherine  de  Medici  was  at  that 
time  only  seventeen  years  of  age. 

It  has  been  said  that  Charles  V.  himself  imputed 
this  murder  to  Catherine,  and  the  historian  Pera  is 
quoted  to  prove  it.  Thiy  however,  is  an  error. 
These  are  the  historian's  words : 

''This  year  the  dauphin  of  France  died  at  Paris 
with  decided  indications  of  poison.  His  friends  as- 
cribed it  to  the  orders  of  the  Marquis  del  Vasto  and 
Anthony  de  Leva,  which  led  to  the  execution  of 
Count  Montecuculi,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  corre- 
sponding with  them:  base  and  absurd  suspicion  of 
men  so  highly  honorable,  as  by  destroying  the  dau- 
phin little  or  nothing  could  be  gained.  He  was  not 
yet  known  by  his  valor  any  more  than  his  brothers, 
who  were  next  in  the  succession  to  him. 

"To  one  presumption  succeeded  another.  It  was 
pretended  that  this  murder  was  committed  by  order 
of  the  duke  of  Orleans,  his  brother,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  his  wife,  Catherine  de  Medici,  who  was  am- 
Vol.  8—19 


290  Philosophical 

bitious  of  being  a  queen,  which,  in  fact,  she  even- 
tually was.  It  is  well  remarked  by  a  certain  author, 
that  the  dreadful  death  of  the  duke  of  Orleans, 
afterwards  Henry  II.,  was  the  punishment  of 
heaven  upon  him  for  poisoning  his  brother — at 
least,  if  he  really  did  poison  him — a  practice  too 
common  among  princes,  by  which  they  free  them- 
selves at  little  cost  from  stumbling-blocks  in  their 
career,  but  frequently  and  manifestly  punished  by 
God." 

Signor  di  Pera,  we  instantly  perceive,  is  not  an 
absolute  Tacitus ;  besides,  he  takes  Montecuculi,  or 
Montecuculo,  as  he  calls  him,  for  a  Frenchman.  He 
says  the  dauphin  died  at  Paris,  whereas  it  was  at 
Tournon.  He  speaks  of  decided  indications  of  poi- 
£on  from  public  rumor ;  but  it  is  clear  that  he  attrib- 
utes the  accusation  of  Catherine  de  Medici  only 
to  the  French.  This  charge  is  equally  unjust  and 
extravagant  with  that  against  Montecuculi. 

In  fact,  this  volatile  temperament,  so  character- 
istic of  the  French,  has  in  every  period  of  our  his- 
tory led  to  the  most  tragical  catastrophes.  If  we  go 
back  from  the  iniquitous  execution  of  Montecuculi 
to  that  of  the  Knights  Templars,  we  shall  see  a  series 
of  the  most  atrocious  punishments,  founded  upon 
the  most  frivolous  presumptions.  Rivers  of  blood 
have  flowed  in  France  in  consequence  of  the 
thoughtless  character  and  precipitate  judgment  of 
the  French  people. 

We  may  just  notice  the  wretched  pleasure  that 


Dictionary.  291 

some  men,  and  particularly  those  of  weak  minds, 
secretly  enjoy  in  talking  or  writing  of  public  execu- 
tions, like  that  they  derive  from  the  subject  of 
miracles  and  sorceries.  In  Calmet's  "Dictionary  of 
the  Bible"  you  may  find  a  number  of  fine  engravings 
of  the  punishments  in  use  among  the  Hebrews. 
These  prints  are  absolutely  sufficient  to  strike  every 
person  of  feeling  with  horror.  We  will  take  this 
opportunity  to  observe  that  neither  the  Jews  nor 
any  other  people  ever  thought  of  fixing  persons  to 
the  cross  by  nails ;  and  that  there  is  not  even  a  single 
instance  of  it.  It  is  the  fiction  of  some  painter,  built 
upon  an  opinion  completely  erroneous. 

SECTION    III. 

Ye  sages  who  are  scattered  over  the  world — for 
some  sages  there  are — join  the  philosophic  Beccaria, 
and  proclaim  with  all  your  strength  that  punish- 
ments ought  to  be  proportioned  to  crimes : 

That  after  shooting  through  the  head  a  young 
man  of  the  age  of  twenty,  who  has  spent  six  months 
with  his  father  and  mother  or  his  mistress,  instead 
of  rejoining  his  regiment,  he  can  no  longer  be  of 
any  service  to  his  country : 

That  if  you  hang  on  the  public  gallows  the  serv- 
ant girl  who  stole  a  dozen  napkins  from  her  mis- 
tress, she  will  be  unable  to  add  to  the  number  of 
your  citizens  a  dozen  children,  whom  you  may  be 
considered  as  strangling  in  embryo  with  their  par- 
ent :    that  there  is  no  proportion  between  a  dozen 


292  Philosophical 

napkins  and  human  life ;  and,  finally,  that  you  really 
encourage  domestic  theft,  because  no  master  will  be 
so  cruel  as  to  get  his  coachman  hanged  for  stealing 
a  few  of  his  oats ;  but  every  master  would  prose- 
cute to  obtain  the  infliction  of  a  punishment  which 
should  be  simply  proportioned  to  the  offence : 

That  all  judges  and  legislators  are  guilty  of  the 
death  of  all  the  children  which  unfortunate,  seduced 
women  desert,  expose,  or  even  strangle,  from  a  simi- 
lar weakness  to  that  which  gave  them  birth. 

On  this  subject  I  shall  without  scruple  relate 
what  has  just  occurred  in  the  capital  of  a  wise  and 
powerful  republic,  which  however,  with  all  its  wis- 
dom, has  unhappily  retained  some  barbarous  laws 
from  those  old,  unsocial,  and  inhuman  ages,  called 
by  some  the  ages  of  purity  of  manners.  Near  this 
capital  a  new-born  infant  w^as  found  dead ;  a  girl 
was  apprehended  on  suspicion  of  being  the  mother; 
she  was  shut  up  in  a  dungeon ;  she  was  strictly  in- 
terrogated ;  she  replied  that  she  could  not  have  been 
the  mother  of  that  child,  as  she  was  at  the  present 
time  pregnant.  She  was  ordered  to  be  visited  by  a 
certain  number  of  what  are  called  (perfectly  mal- 
apropos in  the  present  instance)  wise  women — by  a 
commission  of  matrons.  These  poor  imbecile  creat- 
ures declared  her  not  to  be  with  child,  and  that  the 
appearance  of  pregnancy  was  occasioned  by  im- 
proper retention.  The  unfortunate  woman  w^as 
threatened  with  the  torture ;  her  mind  became 
alarmed  and  terrified;    she  confessed  that  she  had 


Dictionary.  293 

killed  her  supposed  child ;  she  was  capitally  con- 
victed; and  during  the  actual  passing  of  her  sen- 
tence was  seized  with  the  pains  of  childbirth.  Her 
judges  were  taught  by  this  most  impressive  case  not 
lightly  to  pass  sentences  of  death. 

With  respect  to  the  numberless  executions  which 
weak  fanatics  have  inflicted  upon  other  fanatics 
equally  weak,  I  will  say  nothing  more  about  them ; 
although  it  is  impossible  to  say  too  much. 

There  are  scarcely  any  highway  robberies  com- 
mitted in  Italy  without  assassinations,  because  the 
punishment  of  death  is  equally  awarded  to  both 
crimes. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  M.  de  Beccaria,  in  his 
"Treatise  on  Crimes  and  Punishments"  has  noticed 
this  very  important  fact. 

EXECUTIONER. 

It  mav  be  thought  that  this  word  should  not  be 
permitted  to  degrade  a  dictionary  of  arts  and 
sciences ;  it  has  a  connection  however  with  juris- 
prudence and  history.  Our  great  poets  have  not  dis- 
dained frequently  to  avail  themselves  of  this  word 
in  tragedy :  Clytemnestra,  in  Iphigenia,  calls  Aga- 
memnon the  executioner  of  his  daughter. 

In  comedy  it  is  used  with  great  gayety ;  Mercury 
in  the  "Amphitryon"  (act  i.  scene  2),  says:  "Com- 
ment, bourreau!  hi  fais  des  cris!" — "How,  hang- 
man!  thou  bellowest!" 


294  Philosophical 

And  even  the  Romans  permitted  themselves  to 
say:  "Qiiorsum  vadis,  carnifex?" — "Whither  goest 
thou,  hangman?" 

The  Encyclopaedia,  under  the  word  "Execu- 
tioner," details  all  the  privileges  of  the  Parisian  exe- 
cutioner ;  but  a  recent  author  has  gone  farther.  In 
a  romance  on  education,  not  altogether  equal  to 
Xenophon's  "Cyropaedia"  or  Fenelon's  "Telema- 
chus,"  he  pretends  that  the  monarch  of  a  country 
ought,  without  hesitation,  to  bestow  the  daughter  of 
an  executioner  in  marriage  on  the  heir  apparent  of 
the  crown,  if  she  has  been  well  educated,  and  if  she 
is  of  a  sufficiently  congruous  disposition  with  the 
young  prince.  It  is  a  pity  tliat  he  has  not  men- 
tioned the  precise  sum  she  should  carry  with  her  as 
a  dower,  and  the  honors  that  should  be  conferred 
upon  her  father  on  the  day  of  marriage. 

It'  is  scarcely  possible,  with  due  congruity,  to 
carry  further  the  profound  morality,  the  novel  rules 
of  decorum,  the  exquisite  paradoxes,  and  divine 
maxims  with  which  the  author  I  speak  of  has  fa- 
vored and  regaled  the  present  age.  He  would  un- 
doubtedly feel  the  perfect  congruity  of  officiating  as 
bridesman  at  the  wedding.  He  would  compose  the 
princess's  epithalamium,  and  not  fail  to  celebrate  the 
grand  exploits  of  her  father.  The  bride  may  then 
possibly  impart  some  acrid  kisses ;  for  be  it  known 
that  this  same  writer,  in  another  romance  called 
"Helo'ise,"  introduces  a  young  Swiss,  who  had 
caught  a  particular  disorder  in  Paris,  saying  to  his 


Dictionary.  295 

mistress,  "Keep  your  kisses  to  yourself ;    they  arc 
too  acrid." 

A  time  will  come  when  it  will  scarcely  be  con- 
ceived possible  that  such  works  should  have  obtained 
a  sort  of  celebrity ;  had  the  celebrity  continued,  it 
would  have  done  no  honor  to  the  age.  Fathers  of 
families  soon  made  up  their  minds  that  it  was  not 
exactly  decorous  to  marry  their  eldest  sons  to  the 
daughters  of  executioners,  whatever  congruity 
might  appear  to  exist  between  the  lover  and  the 
lady.  There  is  a  rule  in  all  things,  and  certain  limits 
which  cannot  be  rationally  passed. 

Est  modus  in  rebus,  sunt  certi  denique  fines, 
Quos  ultra  citraque  neqtdt  consistere  rectum. 

EXPIATION. 

Dieufit  du  repentir  la  vertu  des  viortels. 

The  repentance  of  man  is  accepted  by  God  as 
virtue,  and  perhaps  the  finest  institution  of  antiquity 
was  that  solemn  ceremony  which  repressed  crimes 
by  announcing  that  they  would  be  punished,  and  at 
the  same  time  soothed  the  despair  of  the  guilty  by 
permitting  them  to  redeem  their  transgressions  by 
appointed  modes  of  penance.  Remorse,  it  is  to  be 
remembered,  must  necessarily  have  preceded  expia- 
tion, for  diseases  are  older  than  medicine,  and  neces- 
sities than  relief. 

There  was,  then,  previously  to  all  public  and 
legal  forms  of  worship,  a  natural  and  instinctive  re- 
ligion which  inflicted  grief  upon  the  heart  of  any 


296  Philosophical 

one  who,  through  ignorance  or  passion,  had  com- 
mitted an  inhuman  action.  A  man  in  a  quarrel  has 
killed  his  friend,  or  his  brother,  or  a  jealous  and 
frantic  lover  has  taken  the  life  of  her  without  whom 
he  felt  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  live.  The  chief  of 
a  nation  has  condemned  to  death  a  virtuous  man  and 
useful  citizen.  Such  men,  if  they  retain  their  senses 
and  sensibility,  become  overwhelmed  by  despair. 
Their  consciences  pursue  and  haunt  them ;  two 
courses  only  are  open  to  them,  reparation  or  to  be- 
come hardened  in  guilt.  All  who  have  the  slightest 
feeling  remaining  choose  the  former ;  monsters 
adopt  the  latter. 

As  soon  as  religion  was  established,  expiations 
were  admitted.  The  ceremonies  attending  them 
were,  unquestionably,  ridiculous ;  for  what  connec- 
tion is  there  between  the  water  of  the  Ganges  and  a 
murder?  How  could  a  man  repair  homicide  by 
bathing?  We  have  already  commented  on  the  ex- 
cess of  absurdity  and  insanity  which  can  imagine 
that  what  washes  the  body,  washes  the  soul  also, 
and  expunges  from  it  the  stain  of  evil  actions. 

The  water  of  the  Nile  had  afterwards  the  same 
virtue  as  that  of  the  Ganges  ;  other  ceremonies  were 
added  to  these  ablutions.  The  Egyptians  took  two 
he-goats  and  drew  lots  which  of  the  two  should  be 
cast  out  loaded  with  the  sins  of  the  guilty.  This 
goat  was  called  Hazazel,  the  expiator.  What  con- 
nection is  there,  pray,  between  a  goat  and  the  crime 
of  a  human  being? 


Dictionary.  297 

It  is  certainly  true  that  in  after  times  this  cere- 
mony was  sanctified  among  our  fathers  the  Jews, 
who  adopted  many  of  the  Egyptian  rites ;  but  the 
souls  of  the  Jews  were  undoubtedly  purified,  not  by 
the  goat  but  by  repentance. 

Jason,  having  killed  Absyrtus,  his  brother-in-law, 
went,  we  are  told,  with  Medea,  who  was  more  guilty 
than  himself,  to  be  absolved  by  Circe,  the  queen  and 
priestess  of  JEa,  who  passed  in  those  days  for  a 
most  powerful  sorceress.  Circe  absolved  them  with 
a  sucking  pig  and  salt  cakes.  This  might  possibly 
be  a  very  good  dish,  but  it  could  neither  compensate 
for  the  blood  of  Absyrtus,  nor  make  Jason  and 
Medea  more  worthy  people,  unless  while  eating 
their  pig  they  also  manifested  the  sincerity  of  their 
repentance. 

The  expiation  of  Orestes,  who  had  avenged  his 
father  by  the  murder  of  his  mother,  consisted  in 
going  and  stealing  a  statue  from  the  Tartars  of  the 
Crimea.  The  statue  was  probably  extremely  ill  exe- 
cuted, and  there  appeared  nothing  to  be  gained  by 
such  an  enterprise.  In  later  times  these  things  were 
contrived  better :  mysteries  were  invented,  and  the 
offenders  might  obtain  absolution  at  these  mysteries 
by  submitting  to  certain  painful  trials,  and  swearing 
to  lead  a  new  life.  It  is  from  this  oath  that  the  per- 
sons taking  it  had  attached  to  them,  among  all  na- 
tions, a  name  corresponding  to  that  of  initiated  "qui 
ineimt  vitam  novam," — who  begin  a  new  career, 
who  enter  upon  the  path  of  virtue. 


298  Philosophical 

We  have  seen  under  the  article  on  "Baptism"  that 
the  Christian  catechumens  were  not  called  initiated 
till  after  they  had  been  baptized. 

It  is  indisputable,  that  persons  had  not  their  sins 
washed  away  in  these  mysteries,  but  by  virtue  of 
their  oath  to  become  virtuous :  the  hierophant  in  all 
the  Grecian  mysteries,  when  dismissing  the  assem- 
bly, pronounced  the  two  Egyptian  words,  "Koth, 
ompheth,"  "watch,  be  pure" ;  which  at  once  proves 
that  the  mysteries  came  originally  from  Egypt,  and 
that  they  were  invented  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
making  mankind  better. 

Wise  men,  we  thus  see,  have,  in  every  age,  done 
all  in  their  power  to  inspire  the  love  of  virtue,  and 
to  prevent  the  weakness  of  man  from  sinking  under 
despair ;  but,  at  the  same  time  there  have  existed 
crimes  of  such  magnitude  and  horror  that  no  mys- 
tery could  admit  of  their  expiation,  Nero,  al- 
though an  emperor,  could  not  obtain  initiation  into 
the  mysteries  of  Ceres.  Constantine,  according  to 
the  narrative  of  Zosimus,  was  unable  to  procure  the 
pardon  of  his  crimes :  he  was  polluted  with  the 
blood  of  his  wife,  his  son,  and  all  his  relations.  It 
was  necessary,  for  the  protection  of  the  human  race, 
that  crimes  so  flagitious  should  be  deemed  incapable 
of  expiation,  that  the  prospect  of  absolution  might 
not  invite  to  their  committal,  and  that  hideous  atroc- 
ity might  be  checked  by  universal  horror. 

The  Roman  Catholics  have  expiations  which  they 
call  penances.     We  have  seen,  under  the  article  on 


Dictionary.  299 

"Austerities,"  how  grossly  so  salutary  an  institution 
has  been  abused. 

According  to  the  laws  of  the  barbarians  who  sub- 
verted the  Roman  Empire,  crimes  were  expiated  by 
money.  This  was  called  compounding:  "Let  the 
offender  compound  by  paying  ten,  twenty,  thirty 
shillings."  Two  hundred  sous  constituted  the  com- 
position price  for  killing  a  priest,  and  four  hundred 
for  killing  a  bishop ;  so  that  a  bishop  was  worth  ex- 
actly two  priests. 

After  having  thus  compounded  with  men,  God 
Himself  was  compounded  with,  when  the  practice  of 
confession  became  generally  established.  At  length 
Pope  John  XXII.  established  a  tariff  of  sins. 

The  absolution  of  incest,  committed  by  a  layman, 
cost  four  livres  tournois :  "Ab  incestu  pro  laico  in 
foro  conscienticr  furoueiises  quatuor."  For  a  man 
and  woman  who  have  committed  incest,  eighteen 
livres  tournois,  four  ducats,  and  nine  carlines.  This 
is  certainly  unjust ;  if  one  person  pays  only  four 
livres  tournois,  two  persons  ought  not  to  pay  more 
than  eight. 

Even  crimes  against  nature  have  actuall}-  their 
affixed  rates,  amounting  to  ninety  livres  tournois, 
twelve  ducats,  and  six  carlines :  "Cuvi  inhihitione 
turonenses  go,  ducafos  12,  carJinos  go,"  etc. 

It  is  scarcely  credible  that  Leo  X.  should  have 
been  so  imprudent  as  to  print  this  book  of  rates  or 
indulgences  in  15 14,  which,  however,  we  are  assured 
he  did ;   at  the  same  time  it  must  be  considered  that 


300  Philosophical 

no  spark  had  then  appeared  of  that  conflagration, 
kindled  afterwards  by  the  reformers;  and  that  the 
court  of  Rome  reposed  implicitly  upon  the  credulity 
of  the  people,  and  neglected  to  throw  even  the 
slightest  veil  over  its  impositions.  The  public  sale 
of  indulgences,  which  soon  followed,  shows  that  that 
court  took  no  precaution  whatever  to  conceal  its 
gross  abominations  from  the  various  nations  which 
had  been  so  long  accustomed  to  them.  When  the 
complaints  against  the  abuses  of  the  Romish  church 
burst  forth,  it  did  all  in  its  power  to  suppress  this 
publication,  but  all  was  in  vain. 

If  I  may  give  my  opinion  upon  this  book  of 
rates,  I  must  say  that  I  do  not  believe  the  editions 
of  it  are  genuine ;  the  rates  are  not  in  any  kind  of 
proportion  and  do  not  at  all  coincide  with  those 
stated  by  d'Aubigne,  the  grandfather  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  in  the  confession  of  de  Sancy.  Depriving 
a  woman  of  her  virginity  is  estimated  at  six  gros, 
and  committing  incest  with  a  mother  or  a  sister,  at 
five  gros.  This  is  evidently  ridiculous.  I  think 
that  there  really  was  a  system  of  rates  or  taxes  es- 
tablished for  those  who  w-ent  to  Rome  to  obtain  ab- 
solution or  purchase  dispensations,  but  that  the  ene- 
mies of  the  Holy  See  added  largely,  in  order  to 
increase  the  odium  against  it.  Consult  Bayle,  under 
the  articles  on  "Bank,"  "Dupinet,"  "Drelincourt." 

It  is  at  least  positively  certain  that  these  rates 
were  never  authorized  by  any  council;  that  they 
constituted  an  enormous  abuse,  invented  by  avarice, 


Dictionary.  301 

and  respected  by  those  who  were  interested  in  its 
not  being  abolished.  The  sellers  and  the  purchasers 
equally  found  their  account  in  it ;  and  accordingly 
none  opposed  it  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  dis- 
turbances attending  the  Reformation,  It  must  be 
acknowledged  that  an  exact  list  of  all  these  rates  or 
taxes  would  be  eminently  useful  in  the  formation 
of  a  history  of  the  human  mind. 

EXTREME. 

We  will  here  attempt  to  draw  from  the  word 
"extreme"  an  idea  that  may  be  attended  with  some 
utihty. 

it  is  every  day  disputed  whether  in  war  success 
is  ascribable  to  conduct  or  to  fortune. 

Whether  in  diseases,  nature  or  medicine  is  most 
operative  in  healing  or  destroying. 

Whether  in  law  it  is  not  judicious  for  a  man  to 
compromise,  although  he  is  in  the  right,  and  to  de- 
fend a  cause  although  he  is  in  the  wrong. 

Whether  the  fine  arts  contribute  to  the  glory  or 
to  the  decline  of  a  state. 

Whether  it  is  wise  or  injudicious  to  encourage 
superstition  in  a  people. 

Whether  there  is  any  truth  in  metaphysics,  his- 
tory, or  morals. 

Whether  taste  is  arbitrary,  and  whether  there  is 
in  reality  a  good  and  a  bad  taste. 

In  order  to  decide  at  once  all  these  questions, 


302  Philosophical 

take  an  advantage  of  the  extreme  cases  under  each, 
compare  these  two  extremes,  and  you  will  imme- 
diately discover  the  truth. 

You  wish  to  know  whether  success  in  war  can  be 
infallibly  decided  by  conduct ;  consider  the  most 
extreme  case,  the  most  opposed  situations  in  which 
conduct  alone  will  infallibly  triumph.  The  hostile 
army  must  necessarily  pass  through  a  deep  moun- 
tain gorge ;  your  commander  knows  this  circum- 
stance; he  makes  a  forced  march,  gets  possession 
of  the  heights,  and  completely  encloses  the  enemy 
in  the  defile;  there  they  must  either  perish  or  sur- 
render. In  this  extreme  case  fortune  can  have  no 
share  in  the  victory.  It  is  demonstrable,  therefore, 
that  skill  may  decide  the  success  of  a  campaign, 
and  it  hence  necessarily  follows  that  war  is  an  art. 

Afterwards  imagine  an  advantageous  but  not  a 
decisive  position ;  success  is  not  certain,  but  it  is 
exceedingly  probable.  And  thus,  from  one  grada- 
tion to  another,  you  arrive  at  what  may  be  consid- 
ered a  perfect  equality  between  the  two  armies. 
Who  shall  then  decide?  Fortune;  that  is,  some 
unexpected  circumstance  or  event ;  the  death  of  a 
general  officer  going  to  execute  some  important 
order ;  the  derangement  of  a  division  in  consequence 
of  a  false  report,  the  operation  of  sudden  panic,  or 
various  other  causes  for  which  prudence  can  find 
no  remedy;  yet  it  is  still  always  certain  that  there 
is  an  art,  that  there  is  a  science  in  war. 

The  same  must  be  observed  concerning  medicine ; 


Dictionary.  303 

the  art  of  operating  with  the  head  or  hand  to  pre- 
serve the  life  which  appears  hkely  to  be  lost. 

The  first  who  applied  bleeding  as  speedily  as  pos- 
sible to  a  patient  under  apoplexy ;  the  first  who  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  plunging  a  bistoury  into  the 
bladder  to  extract  the  stone  from  it,  and  of  closing 
up  the  wound ;  the  first  who  found  out  the  method 
of  stopping  gangrene  in  any  part  of  the  human 
frame,  were  undoubtedly  men  almost  divine,  and 
totally  unlike  the  physicians  of  Moliere. 

Descend  from  this  strong  and  decisive  example 
to  cases  less  striking  and  more  equivocal ;  you  per- 
ceive fevers  and  various  other  maladies  cured  with- 
out its  being  possible  to  ascertain  whether  this  is 
done  by  the  physician  or  by  nature ;  you  perceive 
diseases,  the  issue  of  which  cannot  be  judged ; 
various  physicians  are  mistaken  in  their  opinions 
of  the  seat  or  nature  of  them ;  he  who  has  the 
acutest  genius,  the  keenest  eye,  develops  the  char- 
acter of  the  complaint.  There  is  then  an  art  in  med- 
icine, and  the  man  of  superior  mind  is  acquainted 
with  its  niceties.  Thus  it  was  that  La  Peyronie  dis- 
covered that  one  of  the  courtiers  had  swallowed  a 
sharp  bone,  which  had  occasioned  an  ulcer  and  en- 
dangered his  life ;  and  thus  also  did  Boerhaave  dis- 
cover the  complaint,  as  unknown  as  it  was  dreadful, 
of  a  countess  of  Wassenaer.  There  is,  therefore, 
it  cannot  be  doubted,  an  art  in  medicine,  but  in  every 
art  there  are  Virgils  and  Maeviuses. 

In  jurisprudence,   take  a  case  that  is  clear,   in 


J04  Philosophical 

which  the  law  pronounces  decisively ;  a  bill  of  ex- 
change correctly  drawn  and  regularly  accepted;  the 
acceptor  is  bound  to  pay  it  in  every  country  in  the 
world.  There  is,  therefore,  a  useful  jurisprudence, 
although  in  innumerable  cases  sentences  are  arbi- 
trary, because,  to  the  misery  of  mankind,  the  laws 
are  ill-framed. 

Would  you  wish  to  know  whether  the  fine  arts 
are  beneficial  to  a  nation?  Compare  the  two  ex- 
tremes :  Cicero  and  a  perfect  ignoramus.  Decide 
whether  the  fall  of  Rome  was  owing  to  Pliny  or  to 
Attila. 

It  is  asked  whether  we  should  encourage  super- 
stition in  the  people.  Consider  for  a  moment  what 
is  the  greatest  extreme  on  this  baleful  subject,  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  massacres  of  Ire- 
land, or  the  Crusades ;   and  the  question  is  decided. 

Is  there  any  truth  in  metaphysics?  Advert  to 
those  points  which  are  most  striking  and  true. 
Something  exists ;  something,  therefore,  has  existed 
from  all  eternity.  An  eternal  being  exists  of  him- 
self; this  being  cannot  be  either  wicked  or  incon- 
sistent. To  these  truths  we  must  yield;  almost 
all  the  rest  is  open  to  disputation,  and  the  clearest 
understanding  discovers  the  truth. 

It  is  in  everything  else  as  it  is  in  colors ;  bad 
eyes  can  distinguish  between  black  and  white ;  better 
eyes,  and  eyes  much  exercised,  can  distinguish  every 
nicer  gradation :  "Usque  adeo  quod  tangit  idem  est, 
tamen  ultima  distant." 


Dictionary.  305 

EZEKIEL. 

Of  Some  Singular  Passages  in  This  Prophet,  and 
of  Certain  Ancient  Usages. 

It  is  well  known  that  we  ought  not  to  judge  of 
ancient  usages  by  modern  ones ;  he  that  would  re- 
form the  court  of  Alcinous  in  the  "Odyssey,"  upon 
the  model  of  the  Grand  Turk,  or  Louis  XIV.,  would 
not  meet  with  a  very  gentle  reception  from  the 
learned ;  he  who  is  disposed  to  reprehend  Virgil 
for  having  described  King  Evander  covered  with 
a  bear's  skin  and  accompanied  by  two  dogs  at  the 
introduction  of  ambassadors,  is  a  contemptible  critic. 

The  manners  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  Jews 
are  still  more  different  from  ours  than  those  of 
King  Alcinous,  his  daughter  Nausicaa,  and  the 
worthy  Evander.  Ezekiel,  when  in  slavery  among 
the  Chaldseans,  had  a  vision  near  the  small  river 
Chobar,  which  falls  into  the  Euphrates. 

We  ought  not  to  be  in  the  least  astonished  at  his 
having  seen  animals  with  four  faces,  four  wings, 
and  with  calves'  feet;  or  wheels  revolving  without 
aid  and  "instinct  with  life" ;  these  images  are  pleas- 
ing to  the  imagination ;  but  many  critics  have  been 
shocked  at  the  order  given  him  by  the  Lord  to  eat, 
for  a  period  of  three  hundred  and  ninety  days,  bread 
made  of  barley,  wheat,  or  millet,  covered  with 
human  ordure. 

The  prophet  exclaimed  in  strong  disgust,  "My 

soul  has  not  hitherto  been  polluted" ;   and  the  Lord 
Vol.  &— 20 


3o6  Philosophical 

replied,  "Well,  I  will  allow  you  instead  of  man's 
ordure  to  use  that  of  the  cow,  and  with  the  latter 
you  shall  knead  your  bread." 

As  it  is  now  unusual  to  eat  a  preparation  of  bread 
of  this  description,  the  greater  number  of  men  regard 
the  order  in  question  as  unworthy  of  the  Divine 
Majesty.  Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  cow-dung 
and  all  the  diamonds  of  the  great  Mogul  are  per- 
fectly equal,  not  only  in  the  eyes  of  a  Divine  Being, 
but  in  those  of  a  true  philosopher :  and,  with  regard 
to  the  reasons  which  God  might  have  for  order- 
ing the  prophet  this  repast,  we  have  no  right  to  in- 
quire into  them.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  see  that 
commands  which  appear  to  us  very  strange,  did  not 
appear  so  to  the  Jews. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  synagogue,  in  the 
time  of  St.  Jerome,  did  not  suffer  "Ezekiel"  to  be 
read  before  the  age  of  thirty ;  but  this  was  because, 
in  the  eighteenth  chapter,  he  says  that  the  son  shall 
not  bear  the  iniquity  of  his  father,  and  it  shall  not  be 
any  longer  said  the  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes, 
and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge. 

This  expression  was  considered  in  direct  contra- 
diction to  Moses,  who,  in  the  twenty-eighth  chapter 
of  "Numbers,"  declares  that  the  children  bear  the 
iniquity  of  the  fathers,  even  to  the  third  and  fourth 
generation. 

Ezekiel,  again,  in  the  twentieth  chapter,  makes 
the  Lord  say  that  He  has  given  to  the  Jews  precepts 
which  are  not  good.    Such  are  the  reasons  for  which 


Dictionary.  307 

the  synagogue  forbade  young  people  reading 
an  author  hkely  to  raise  doubts  on  the  irrefragabihty 
of  the  laws  of  Closes. 

The  censorious  critics  of  the  present  day  are 
still  more  astonished  with  the  sixteenth  chapter  of 
Ezekiel.  In  that  chapter  he  thus  takes  it  upon  him 
to  expose  the  crimes  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem.  He 
introduces  the  Lord  speaking  to  a  young  woman ; 
and  the  Lord  said  to  her,  "When  thou  wast  born, 
thy  navel  string  was  not  cut,  thou  wast  not  salted, 
thou  wast  quite  naked,  I  had  pity  on  thee ;  thou 
didst  increase  in  stature,  thy  breasts  were  fashioned, 
thy  hair  was  grown,  I  passed  by  thee,  I  observed 
thee,  I  knew  that  the  time  of  lovers  was  come,  I  cov- 
ered thy  shame,  I  spread  my  skirt  over  thee ;  thou 
becamest  mine ;  I  washed  and  perfumed  thee,  and 
dressed  and  shod  thee  well ;  I  gave  thee  a  scarf  of 
linen,  and  bracelets,  and  a  chain  for  thy  neck ;  T 
placed  a  jewel  in  thy  nose,  pendants  in  thy  ears,  and 
a  crown  upon  thy  head." 

"Then,  confiding  in  thy  beauty,  thou  didst  in  the 
height  of  thy  renown,  play  the  harlot  with  every 
passer-by  ....  And  thou  hast  built  a  high  place  of 
profanation  ....  and  thou  hast  prostituted  thy- 
self in  public  places,  and  opened  thy  feet  to  every 
one  that  passed  ....  and  thou  hast  committed 
fornication  with  the  Egyptians  ....  and  finally 
thovi  hast  paid  thy  lovers  and  made  them  presents, 
that  they  might  lie  with  thee  ....  and  by  hiring 
them,  instead  of  being  hired,  thou  hast  done  differ- 


3o8  Philosophical 

ently  from  other  harlots The  proverb  is,  as 

is  the  mother,  so  is  the  daughter,  and  that  proverb 
is  used  of  thee,"  etc. 

Still  more  are  they  exasperated  on  the  subject  of 
the  twenty-third  chapter.  A  mother  had  two  daugh- 
ters, who  early  lost  their  virginity.  The  elder  was 
called  Ahola,  and  the  younger  Aholibah  .... 
"Aholah  committed  fornication  with  young  lords 
and  captains,  and  lay  with  the  Egyptians  from  her 
early  youth  ....  Aholibah,  her  sister,  committed 
still  greater  fornication  with  officers  and  rulers  and 
well-made  cavaliers ;  she  discovered  her  shame,  she 
multiplied  her  fornications,  she  sought  eagerly  for 
the  embraces  of  those  whose  flesh  was  as  that  of 
asses,  and  whose  issue  was  as  that  of  horses." 

These  descriptions,  which  so  madden  weak 
minds,  signify,  in  fact,  no  more  than  the  iniquities 
of  Jerusalem  and  Samaria;  these  expressions, 
which  appear  to  us  licentious,  were  not  so  then.  The 
same  vivacity  is  displayed  in  many  other  parts  of 
Scripture  without  the  slightest  apprehension.  Open- 
ing the  womb  is  very  frequently  mentioned.  The 
terms  made  use  of  to  express  the  union  of  Boaz 
with  Ruth,  and  of  Judah  with  his  daughter-in-law, 
are  not  indelicate  in  the  Hebrew  language,  but 
would  be  so  in  our  own. 

People  who  are  not  ashamed  of  nakedness,  never 
cover  it  with  a  veil.  In  the  times  under  consider- 
ation, no  blush  could  have  been  raised  by  the  men- 
tion of  particular  parts  of  the  frame  of  man,  as  they 


Dictionary.  309 

were  actually  touched  by  the  person  who  bound 
himself  by  any  promise  to  another ;  it  was  a  mark  of 
respect,  a  symbol  of  fidelity,  as  formerly  among  our- 
selves, feudal  lords  put  their  hands  between  those  of 
their  sovereign. 

We  have  translated  the  term  adverted  to  by  the 
word  "thigh."  Eliezer  puts  his  hand  under  Abra- 
ham's thigh.  Joseph  puts  his  hand  under  the  thigh 
of  Jacob.  This  custom  was  very  ancient  in  Egypt. 
The  Egyptians  were  so  far  from  attaching  any  dis- 
grace to  what  we  are  desirous  as  much  as  possible 
to  conceal  and  avoid  the  mention  of,  that  they  bore 
in  procession  a  large  and  characteristic  image,  called 
Phallus,  in  order  to  thank  the  gods  for  making  the 
human  frame  so  instrumental  in  the  perpetuation  of 
the  human  species. 

All  this  affords  sufficient  proof  that  our  sense  of 
decorum  and  propriety  is  different  from  that  of 
other  nations.  When  do  the  Romans  appear  to  have 
been  more  polished  than  in  the  time  of  Augustus? 
Yet  Horace  scruples  not  to  say,  in  one  of  his  moral 
pieces :  "Nee  meUio,  ne  dum  fiituo  vir  rure  recur- 
rat."  (Satire  11.,  book  i.,  v.  127.)  Augustus  uses 
the  same  expression  in  an  epigram  on  Fulvia. 

The  man  who  should  among  us  pronounce  tl^' 
expression  in  our  language  corresponding  to  it, 
would  be  regarded  as  a  drunken  porter ;  that  word, 
as  well  as  various  others  used  by  Horace  and  other 
authors,  appears  to  us  even  more  indecent  than  the 
expressions  of  Ezekiel.     Let  us  then  do  away  with 


jio  Philosopnical 

our  prejudices  when  we  read  ancient  authors,  or 
travel  among  distant  nations.  Nature  is  the  same 
everywhere,  and  usages  are  everywhere  different. 

I  once  met  at  Amsterdam  a  rabbi  quite  brimful 
of  this  chapter.  "Ah!  my  friend,"  says  he,  "how 
very  much  we  are  obliged  to  you.  You  have  dis- 
played all  the  sublimity  of  the  Mosaic  law,  Ezekiel's 
breakfast ;  his  delightful  left-sided  attitudes ;  Aho- 
lah  and  Aholibah  are  admirable  things ;  they  are 
types,  my  brother — types  which  show  that  one  day 
the  Jewish  people  will  Ije  masters  of  the  whole 
world ;  but  why  did  you  admit  so  many  others  which 
are  nearly  of  equal  strength  ?  Why  did  not  you  rep- 
resent the  Lord  saying  to  the  sage  Hosea,  in  the 
second  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  'Hosea,  take  to 
thyself  a  harlot,  and  make  to  her  the  children  of  a 
harlot?'  Such  are  the  very  words.  Hosea  takes 
the  young  woman  and  has  a  son  by  her,  and  after- 
wards a  daughter,  and  then  again  a  son ;  and  it  was 
a  type,  and  that  type  lasted  three  years.  That  is  not 
all ;  the  Lord  says  in  the  third  chapter,  'Go  and  take 
to  thyself  a  woman  who  is  not  merely  a  harlot,  but 
an  adulteress.'  Hosea  obeyed,  but  it  cost  him  fif- 
teen crowns  and  eighteen  bushels  of  barley ;  for. 
you  know,  there  was  very  little  wheat  in  the  land  of 
promise — but  are  you  aware  of  the  meaning  of  all 
this?"  "No,"  said  I  to  him.  "Nor  I  neither,"  said 
the  rabbi. 

A  grave  person  then  advanced  towards  us  and 
said  they  were  ingenious  fictions  and  abounding  in 


Dictionary.  311 

exquisite  beauty.  "Ah,  sir,"  remarked  a  young  man, 
"if  you  are  inclined  for  fictions,  give  the  preference 
to  those  of  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Ovid."  He  who 
prefers  the  prophecies  of  Ezekiel  deserves  to  break- 
fast with  him. 

FABLE. 

It  is  very  likely  that  the  more  ancient  fables,  in 
the  style  of  those  attributed  to  ^Esop,  were  invented 
by  the  first  subjugated  people.  Free  men  would 
not  have  had  occasion  to  disguise  the  truth  ;  a  tyrant 
can  scarcely  be  spoken  to  except  in  parables ;  and  at 
present,  even  this  is  a  dangerous  liberty. 

It  might  also  very  well  happen  that  men  naturally 
liking  images  and  tales,  ingenious  persons  amuse^i 
themselves  with  composing  them,  without  any  other 
motive.  However  that  may  be,  fable  is  more  ancient 
than  history. 

Among  the  Jews,  who  are  quite  a  modern  people 
in  comparison  with  the  Chaldaeans  and  Tyrians, 
their  neighbors,  but  very  ancient  by  their  own  ac- 
counts, fables  similar  to  those  of  ^^sop  existed  in 
the  time  of  the  Judges,  1233  years  before  our  era, 
if  we  may  depend  upon  received  computations. 

It  is  said  in  the  Book  of  Judges  that  Gideon  had 
seventy  sons  born  of  his  many  wives ;  and  that,  by 
a  concubine,  he  had  another  son  named  Abimelech. 

Now.  this  Abimelech  slew  sixty-nine  of  his 
brethren  upon  one  stone,  according  to  Jewish  cus- 
tom, and  in  consequence  the  Jews,  full  of  respect 


312  Philosophical 

and  admiration,  went  to  crown  him  king,  under  an 
oak  near  Millo,  a  city  which  is  but  Httle  known  in 
history. 

Jotham  alone,  the  youngest  of  the  brothers,  es- 
caped the  carnage — as  it  always  happens  in  ancient 
histories — and  harangued  the  Israehtes,  teUing  them 
that  the  trees  went  one  day  to  choose  a  king;  we 
do  not  well  see  how  they  could  march,  but  if  they 
were  able  to  speak,  they  might  just  as  well  be  able 
to  walk.  They  first  addressed  themselves  to  the 
olive,  saying,  "Reign  thou  over  us."  The  olive  re- 
plied, "I  will  not  quit  the  care  of  my  oil  to  be  pro- 
moted over  you."  The  fig-tree  said  that  he  liked 
his  figs  better  than  the  trouble  of  the  supreme  power. 
The  vine  gave  the  preference  to  its  grapes.  At  last 
the  trees  addressed  themselves  to  the  bramble,  which 
answered  :  "If  in  truth  ye  anoint  one  king  over  you, 
then  come  and  put  your  trust  in  my  shadow ;  and 
if  not,  let  fire  come  out  of  the  bramble  and  devour 
the  cedars  of  Lebanon." 

It  is  true  that  this  fable  falsifies  throughout,  be- 
cause fire  cannot  come  from  a  bramble,  but  it  shows 
the  antiquity  of  the  use  of  fables. 

That  of  the  belly  and  the  members,  which  calmed 
a  tumult  in  Rome  about  two  thousand  three  hun- 
dred years  ago,  is  ingenious  and  without  fault.  The 
more  ancient  the  fables  the  more  allegorical  they 
were. 

Is  not  the  ancient  fable  of  Venus,  as  related  by 
Hesiod,  entirely  a  fable  of  nature?     This   Venus 


Dictionary.  313 

is  the  goddess  of  beauty.  Beauty  ceases  to  be  lovely 
if  unaccompanied  by  the  graces.  Beauty  produces 
love.  Love  has  features  which  pierce  all  hearts ; 
he  wears  a  bandage,  which  conceals  the  faults  of 
those  beloved.  He  has  wings;  he  comes  quickly 
and  flies  away  the  same. 

Wisdom  is  conceived  in  the  brain  of  the  chief  of 
the  gods,  under  the  name  of  Minerva.  The  soul  of 
man  is  a  divine  fire,  which  Minerva  shows  to  Prome- 
theus, who  makes  use  of  this  divine  fire  to  animate 
mankind. 

It  is  impossible,  in  these  fables,  not  to  recognize  a 
lively  picture  of  pure  nature.  Most  other  fables 
are  either  corruptions  of  ancient  histories  or  the 
caprices  of  the  imagination.  It  is  with  ancient  fables 
as  with  our  modern  tales ;  some  convey  charming 
morals,  and  others  very  insipid  ones. 

The  ingenious  fables  of  the  ancients  have  been 
grossly  imitated  by  an  unenlightened  race — witness 
those  of  Bacchus,  Hercules,  Prometheus,  Pandora, 
and  many  others,  which  were  the  amusement  of  the 
ancient  world.  The  barbarians,  who  confusedly 
heard  them  spoken  of,  adopted  them  into  their  own 
savage  mythology,  and  afterwards  it  is  pretended 
that  they  invented  them.  Alas !  poor  unknown  and 
ignorant  people,  who  knew  no  art  either  useful  or 
agreeable — to  whom  even  the  name  of  geometry  was 
unknown — dare  you  say  that  you  have  invented 
anything?  You  have  not  known  either  how  to  dis- 
cover truth,  or  to  lie  adroitly. 


314  Philosophical 

The  most  elegant  Greek  fable  was  that  of  Psyche ; 
the  most  pleasant,  that  of  the  Ephesian  matron.  The 
prettiest  among  the  moderns  is  that  of  Folly,  who, 
having  put  out  Love's  eyes,  is  condemned  to  be  his 
guide. 

The  fables  attributed  to  ^sop  are  all  emblems ; 
instructions  to  the  weak,  to  guard  them  as  much  as 
possible  against  the  snares  of  the  strong.  All  na- 
tions, possessing  a  little  wisdom,  have  adopted 
them.  La  Fontaine  has  treated  them  with  the  most 
elegance.  About  eighty  of  them  are  masterpieces 
of  simplicity,  grace,  finesse,  and  sometimes  even  of 
poetry.  It  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  the  age  of 
Louis  XF\^.  to  have  produced  a  La  Fontaine.  He 
has  so  well  discovered,  almost  without  seeking  it,  the 
art  of  making  one  read,  that  he  has  had  a  greater  rep- 
utation in  France  than  genius  itself. 

Boileau  has  never  reckoned  him  among  those 
who  did  honor  to  the  great  age  of  Louis  XIV. ;  his 
reason  or  his  pretext  was  that  he  had  never  invented 
anything.  What  will  better  bear  out  Boileau  is  the 
great  number  of  errors  in  language  and  the  incor- 
rectness of  style ;  faults  which  La  Fontaine  might 
have  avoided,  and  which  this  severe  critic  could  not 
pardon.  His  grasshopper,  for  instance,  having 
sung  all  the  summer,  went  to  beg  from  the  ant, 
her  neighbor,  in  the  winter,  telling  her,  on  the  word 
of  an  animal,  that  she  would  pay  her  principal  and 
interest  before  midsummer.  The  ant  replies  :  "You 
sang,  did  you?    1  am  glad  of  it;   then  now  dance."" 


Dictionary.  3  ^  5 

His  astrologer,  again,  who  falling  into  a  ditcli 
while  gazing  at  the  stars,  was  asked:  "Poor 
wretch !  do  you  expect  to  be  able  to  read  things  so 
much  above  you?"  Yet  Copernicus,  Galileo,  Cas- 
sini,  and  Halley  have  read  the  heavens  very  well ; 
and  the  best  astronomer  that  ever  existed  might 
fall  into  a  ditch  without  being  a  poor  wretch. 

Judicial  astrology  is  indeed  ridiculous  charlatan- 
ism, but  the  ridiculousness  does  not  consist  in  re- 
garding the  heavens ;  it  consists  in  believing,  or  in 
making  believe,  that  you  read  what  is  not  there. 
Several  of  these  fables,  either  ill  chosen  or  badly 
written,  certainly  merit  the  censure  of  Boileau. 

Nothing  is  more  insipid  than  the  fable  of  the 
drowned  woman,  whose  corpse  was  sought  contrary 
to  the  course  of  the  river,  because  in  her  lifetime  she 
had  always  been  contrary. 

The  tribute  sent  by  the  animals  to  King  Alex- 
ander is  a  fable,  which  is  not  the  better  for  being 
ancient.  The  animals  sent  no  money,  neither  did 
the  lion  advise  them  to  steal  it. 

The  satyr  who  received  a  peasant  into  his  hut 
should  not  have  turned  him  out  on  seeing  that  he 
blew  his  fingers  because  he  was  cold ;  and  after- 
wards, on  taking  the  dish  between  his  teeth,  that  he 
blew  his  pottage  because  it  was  hot.  The  man  was 
quite  right,  and  the  satyr  was  a  fool.  Besides,  we 
do  not  take  hold  of  dishes  with  our  teeth. 

The  crab-mother,  who  reproached  her  daughter 
with  not  walking  straight ;   and  the  daughter,  who 


3 1 6  Philosophical 

answered  that  her  mother  walked  crooked,  is  not  an 
agreeable  fable. 

The  bush  and  the  duck,  in  commercial  partner- 
ship with  the  bat,  having  counters,  factors,  agents, 
paying  principal  and  interest,  etc.,  has  neither  truth, 
nature,  nor  any  kind  of  merit. 

A  bush  which  goes  with  a  bat  into  foreign  coun- 
tries to  trade  is  one  of  those  cold  and  unnatural  in- 
ventions which  La  Fontaine  should  not  have 
adopted.  A  house  full  of  dogs  and  cats,  Irving  to- 
gether like  cousins  and  quarrelling  for  a  dish  of  pot- 
tage, seems  also  very  unworthy  of  a  man  of  taste. 

The  chattering  magpie  is  still  worse.  The  eagle 
tells  her  that  h^  declines  her  company  because  she 
talks  too  much.  On  which  La  Fontaine  remarks 
that  it  is  necessary  at  court  to  wear  two  faces. 

Where  is  the  merit  of  the  fable  of  the  kite  pre- 
sented by  a  bird-catcher  to  a  king,  whose  nose  he 
had  seized  with  his  claws?  The  ape  who  married 
a  Parisian  girl  and  beat  her  is  an  unfortunate  story 
presented  to  La  Fontaine,  and  which  he  has  been  so 
unfortunate  as  to  put  into  verse. 

Such  fables  as  these,  and  some  others,  may  doubt- 
less justify  Boileau ;  it  might  even  happen  that  La 
Fontaine  could  not  distinguish  the  bad  fables  from 
the  good. 

Madame  de  la  Sabliere  called  La  Fontaine  a 
fabulist,  who  bore  fables  as  naturally  as  a  plum-tree 
bears  plums.  It  is  true  that  he  had  only  one  style, 
and  that  he  wrote  an  opera  in  the  style  of  his  fables. 


Dictionary.  317 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  Boileau  should  have 
rendered  justice  to  the  singular  merit  of  the  good 
man,  as  he  calls  him,  and  to  the  public,  who  are  right 
in  being  enchanted  with  the  style  of  many  of  his 
fables. 

La  Fontaine  was  not  an  original  or  a  sublime 
writer,  a  man  of  established  taste,  or  one  of  the  first 
geniuses  of  a  brilliant  era ;  and  it  is  a  very  remark- 
able fault  in  him  that  he  speaks  not  his  own  lan- 
guage correctly.  He  is  in  this  respect  very  inferior  to 
Phaedrus,  but  he  was  a  man  unique  in  the  excellent 
pieces  that  he  has  left  us.  They  are  very  numerous, 
and  are  in  the  mouths  of  all  those  who  have  been 
respectably  brought  up ;  they  contribute  even  to 
their  education.  They  will  descend  to  posterity ; 
they  are  adapted  for  all  men  and  for  all  times,  while 
those  of  Boileau  suit  only  men  of  letters. 

Of  Those  Fanatics  Who  Would  Suppress  the  An- 
cient Fables. 

There  is  among  those  whom  we  call  Jansenists 
a  little  sect  of  hard  and  empty  heads,  who  would 
suppress  the  beautiful  fables  of  antiquity,  to  substi- 
tute St.  Prosper  in  the  place  of  Ovid,  and  Santeuil 
in  that  of  Horace.  If  they  were  attended  to,  our 
pictures  would  no  longer  represent  Iris  on  the  rain- 
bow, or  Minerva  with  her  aegis  ;  but  instead  of  them, 
we  should  have  Nicholas  and  Arnauld  fighting 
against  the  Jesuits  and  Protestants ;  Mademoiselle 
Perrier  cured  of  sore  eyes  by  a  thorn  from  the  crown 


3 1 8  Philosophical 

of  Jesus  Christ,  brought  from  Jerusalem  to  Port 
Royal ;  Counsellor  Carre  cle  Montgeron  presenting 
the  account  of  St.  Medarcl  to  Louis  XV. ;  and  St. 
Ovid  resuscitating  little  boys. 

In  the  eyes  of  these  austere  sages,  Fenelon  was 
only  an  idolater,  who,  following  the  example  of  the 
impious  poem  of  the  "a^neid,"  introduced  the  child 
Cupid  with  the  nymph  Eucharis. 

Pluchc,  at  the  end  of  hi?  fable  of  the  Heavens,  en- 
titled "Their  History,"  v.  lites  a  long  dissertation  to 
prove  that  it  is  shamef.il  to  have  tapestry  worked 
in  figures  taken  froa  Ovid's  "Metamorphoses" ; 
and  that  Zephyrus  ana  Flora.  Yertumnus  and  Po- 
mona, should  be  banished  from  the  gardens  of  Ver- 
sailles. He  exhorts  the  school  of  belles-lettres  to 
oppose  itself  to  this  bad  taste ;  which  reform  alone, 
he  says,  is  capable  of  re-establishing  the  belles- 
lettres. 

Other  puritans,  more  severe  than  sage  a  little  time 
Bgo,  would  have  proscribed  the  ancient  mythology 
as  a  collection  of  puerile  tales,  unworthy  the  ac- 
knowledged gravity  of  our  manners.  It  would, 
however,  be  a  pity  to  burn  Ovid,  Horace,  Hesiod, 
our  fine  tapestry  pictures  and  our  opera.  If  we 
were  spared  the  familiar  stories  of  ^Esop,  why  lay 
hands  on  those  sublime  fables,  which  have  been  re- 
spected by  mankind,  whom  they  have  instructed? 
They  are  mingled  with  many  insipidities,  no  doubt, 
but  what  good  is  without  an  alloy?  All  ages  will 
adopt  Pandora's  box,  at  the  bottom  of  which  was 


Dictionary.  319 

found  man's  only  consolation — hope ;  Jupiter's  two 
vessels,  which  unceasmgly  poured  forth  good  and 
evil ;  the  cloud  embraced  by  Ixion,  which  is  the 
emblem  and  punishment  of  an  ambitious  man ;  and 
the  death  of  Narcissus,  which  is  the  punishment  of 
self-love.  What  is  more  sublime  than  the  image 
of  Minerva,  the  goddess  of  wisdom,  formed  in  the 
head  of  the  master  of  the  gods  ?  What  is  more  true 
and  agreeable  than  the  goddess  of  beauty,  always 
accompanied  by  the  graces?  The  goddesses  of  the 
arts,  all  daughters  of  memory — do  they  not  teach  us, 
as  well  as  Locke,  that  without  memory  we  cannot 
possess  either  judgment  or  wit?  The  arrows  of 
Love,  his  fillet,  and  his  childhood ;  Flora,  caressed 
by  Zephyrus,  etc. — are  they  not  all  sensible  person- 
ifications of  pure  nature?  These  fables  have  sur- 
vived the  religions  which  consecrated  them.  The 
temples  of  the  gods  of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Rome 
are  no  more,  but  Ovid  still  exists.  Objects  of 
credulity  may  be  destroyed,  but  not  those  of  pleas- 
ure ;  we  shall  forever  love  these  true  and  lively 
images.  Lucretius  did  not  believe  in  these  fabulous 
gods,  but  he  celebrated  nature  under  the  name  of 
Venus. 

Alma  Vemis  cceli  subter  labentia  sii^na 
QucE  7nare  tiavigerian^  qitce  terras  fnigiferentes 
Concelebras,  per  te  quonimn  genus  oiiine  animantum 
Concipitur,  visitque  exortwn  lutniiia  so/is,  etc. 

Kind  Venus,  glory  of  the  blest  abodes, 
Parent  of  Rome,  and  joy  of  men  and  pods; 
Delifiht  of  all,  comfort  of  sea  and  earth, 
To  whose  kind  power  all  creatures  owe  their  birth,  etc, 

— Crkech. 


320  Philosophical 

If  antiquity  in  its  obscurity  was  led  to  acknowl- 
edge divinity  in  its  images,  how  is  it  to  be  blamed? 
The  productive  soul  of  the  world  was  adored  by  the 
sages ;  it  governed  the  sea  under  the  name  of  Nep- 
tune, the  air  under  the  image  of  Juno,  and  the  coun- 
try under  that  of  Pan.  It  was  the  divinity  of  armies 
under  the  name  of  Mars ;  all  these  attributes  were 
animated  personifications.  Jupiter  was  the  only 
god.  The  golden  chain  with  which  he  bound  the 
inferior  gods  and  men  was  a  striking  image  of  the 
unity  of  a  sovereign  being.  The  people  were  de- 
ceived, but  what  are  the  people  to  us  ? 

It  is  continually  asked  why  the  Greek  and  Roman 
magistrates  permitted  the  divinities  whom  they 
adored  in  their  temples  to  be  ridiculedon  their  stage? 
This  is  a  false  supposition.  The  gods  were  not 
mocked  in  their  theatres,  but  the  follies  attributed  to 
these  gods  by  those  who  had  corrupted  the  ancient 
mythology.  The  consuls  and  praetors  found  it  good 
to  treat  the  adventure  of  the  two  Sosias  wittily,  but 
they  would  not  have  suffered  the  worship  of 
Jupiter  and  Mercur}'  to  be  attacked  before  the 
people.  It  is  thus  that  a  thousand  things  which  ap- 
pear contradictory  are  not  so  in  reality.  I  have 
seen,  in  the  theatre  of  a  learned  and  witty  nation, 
pieces  taken  from  the  Golden  Legend ;  will  it,  on 
that  account,  be  said  that  this  nation  permits  its  ob- 
jects of  religion  to  be  insulted?  It  need  not  be 
feared  we  shall  become  Pagans  for  having  heard 
the  opera  of  Proserpine  at  Paris,  or  for  having  seen 


Dictionary.  321 

the  nuptials  of  Psyche,  painted  by  Raphael,  in  the 
pope's  palace  at  Rome.  Fable  forms  the  taste,  but 
renders  no  person  idolatrous. 

The  beautiful  fables  of  antiquity  have  also  this 
great  advantage  over  history :  they  are  lessons  of 
virtue,  while  almost  all  history  narrates  the  success 
of  vice.  Jupiter  in  the  fable  descends  upon  earth 
to  punish  Tantalus  and  Lycaon ;  but  in  history  our 
Tantaluses  and  Lycaons  are  the  gods  of  the  earth. 
Baucis  and  Philemon  had  their  cabin  changed  into 
a  temple ;  our  Baucises  and  Philemons  are  obliged 
to  sell,  for  the  collector  of  the  taxes,  those  kettles 
which,  in  Ovid,  the  gods  changed  into  vases  of  gold. 

I  know  how  much  history  can  instruct  us  and 
how  necessary  it  is  to  know  it ;  but  it  requires  much 
ingenuity  to  be  able  to  draw  from  it  any  rules  for 
individual  conduct.  Those  who  know  politics  only 
through  books  will  be  often  reminded  of  those  lines 
of  Corneille,  which  observe  that  examples  will  sel- 
dom suffice  for  our  guidance,  as  it  often  happens 
that  one  person  perishes  by  the  very  expedient 
which  has  proved  the  salvation  of  another. 

Les  exemples  recejis  suffiraieiit pour  vt' instruire 
Si  par  I'  exemple  seul  on  devait  se  conduire; 
Mais  souvent  Fun  se perd oii  I'' autre  s'est  sauve', 
Et par  oil  run  perit,  tin  autre  est  conservi. 

Henry  VIII.,  the  tyrant  of  his  parliament,  his 

ministers  and  his  wives,  of  consciences  and  purses, 

lived  and  died  peaceably.    Charles  I.  perished  on  the 

scafifold.    Margaret  of  Anjou  in  vain  waged  war  in 

person  a  dozen  times  with  the  English,  the  subjects 
Vol.  8—21 


322  Philosophical 

of  her  husband,  while  WilHam  III.  drove  James  II. 
from  England  without  a  battle.  In  our  days  we 
have  seen  the  royal  family  of  Persia  murdered,  and 
strangers  upon  the  throne. 

To  look  at  events  only,  history  seems  to  accuse 
Providence,  and  fine  moral  fables  justify  it.  It  is 
clear  that  both  the  useful  and  agreeable  may  be 
discovered  in  them,  however  exclaimed  against  by 
those  who  are  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  Let 
them  talk  on,  and  let  us  read  Homer  and  Ovid,  as 
well  as  Titus  Livius  and  Rapin  de  Thoyras.  Taste 
induces  preferences  and  fanaticism  exclusions.  The 
arts  are  united,  and  those  who  would  separate  them 
know  nothing  about  them.  History  teaches  us  what 
we  are — fable  what  we  ought  to  be. 

Tous  les  arts  sont  a7nis,  ainsi  qu  Us  sont  divins; 

Qui  veut  les  separer  est  toin  de  les  connaltre. 
L! histoire  ttous  appreiid  ce  que  sont  les  humains, 

La  fable  ce  qu  its  doivent  etre. 

FACTION. 
On  the  Meaning  of  the  Word. 

The  word  "faction"  comes  from  the  Latin 
"facere" ;  it  is  employed  to  signify  the  state  of  a 
soldier  at  his  post,  on  duty  {en  faction),  squadrons 
or  troops  of  combatants  in  the  circus ;  green,  blue, 
red,  and  white  factions. 

The  acceptation  in  which  the  term  is  generally 
used  is  that  of  a  seditious  party  in  the  state.  The 
term  "party"  in  itself  impHes  nothing  that  is  odious, 
that  of  faction  is  always  odious. 


Dictiona^^  ^'^S 

A  great  man,  and  even  a  man  possessing  only 
mediocrity  of  talent,  may  easily  have  a  party  at 
court,  in  the  army,  in  the  city,  or  in  literature.  A 
man  may  have  a  party  in  consequence  of  his  merit,  in 
consequence  of  the  zeal  and  number  of  his  friends, 
without  being  the  head  of  a  party.  Marshal  Catinat, 
although  little  regarded  at  court,  had  a  large  party 
in  the  army  without  making  any  effort  to  obtain  it. 

A  head  of  a  party  is  always  a  head  of  a  faction ; 
such  were  Cardinal  Retz,  Henry,  duke  of  Guise,  and 
various  others.  A  seditious  party,  while  it  is  yet 
w^eak  and  has  no  influence  in  the  government,  is 
only  a  faction. 

Caesar's  faction  speedily  became  a  dominant 
party,  which  swallowed  up  the  republic.  When  the 
emperor  Charles  VI.  disputed  the  throne  of  Spain 
with  Philip  V.  he  had  a  party  in  that  kingdom,  and 
at  length  he  had  no  more  than  a  faction  in  it.  Yet 
we  may  always  be  allowed  to  talk  of  the  "party"  of 
Charles  VI. 

It  is  different  with  respect  to  private  persons. 
Descartes  for  a  long  time  had  a  party  in  France ;  it 
would  be  incorrect  to  say  he  had  a  faction.  Thus 
we  perceive  that  words  in  many  cases  synonymous 
cease  to  be  so  in  others. 

FACULTY. 

All  the  powers  of  matter  and  mind  are  facul- 
ties ;   and,  what  is  still  worse,  faculties  of  which  we 


324  Philosophical 

know  nothing,  perfectly  occult  qualities ;  to  begin 
with  motion,  of  which  no  one  has  discovered  the 
origin. 

When  the  president  of  the  faculty  of  medicine  in 
the  "Malade  Imaginaire,"  asks  Thomas  Diafoirus : 
"Quare  opium  facit  dor  mire?" — Why  does  opium 
cause  sleep?  Thomas  very  pertinently  replies, 
"Quia  est  in  eo  virtus  dormitiva  qucB  facit  sopire." 
— Because  it  possesses  a  dormitive  power  producing 
sleep.  The  greatest  philosophers  cannot  speak  more 
to  the  purpose. 

The  honest  chevalier  de  Jaucourt  acknowledges, 
under  the  article  on  "Sleep,"  that  it  is  impossible  to 
go  beyond  conjecture  with  respect  to  the  cause  of 
it.  Another  Thomas,  and  in  much  higher  reverence 
than  his  bachelor  namesake  in  the  comedy,  has,  in 
fact,  made  no  other  reply  to  all  the  questions  which 
are  started  throughout  his  immense  volumes. 

It  is  said,  under  the  article  on  "Faculty,"  in  the 
grand  "Encyclopaedia,"  "that  the  vital  faculty  once 
established  in  the  intelligent  principle  by  which  we 
are  animated,  it  may  be  easily  conceived  that  the 
faculty,  stimulated  by  the  expressions  which  the 
vital  sensorium  transmits  to  part  of  the  common  sen- 
sorium,  determines  the  alternate  influx  of  the  nerv- 
ous fluid  into  the  fibres  which  move  the  vital  or- 
gans in  order  to  produce  the  alternate  contradiction 
of  those  organs." 

This  amounts  precisely  to  the  answer  of  the 
young  physician  Thomas :     "Quia  est  in  eo  virtus 


Dictionary.  325 

alterniva  gitce  facit  altcrnare."  And  Thomas  Dia- 
foiriis  has  at  least  the  merit  of  being  shortest. 

The  faculty  of  moving  the  foot  when  we  wish 
to  do  so,  of  recalHng  to  mind  past  events,  or  of  ex- 
ercising our  five  senses;  in  short,  any  and  all  of 
our  faculties  will  admit  of  no  further  or  better  ex- 
planation than  that  of  Diafoirus. 

But  consider  thought !  say  those  who  understand 
the  whole  secret.  Thought,  which  distinguishes  man 
from  all  animals  besides :  "Sanctius  his  animal, 
mentisque  capacins  alt(£."  (Ovid's  Metamorph. 
i.  76.) — More  holy  man,  of  more  exalted  mind! 

As  holy  as  you  like;  it  is  on  this  subject,  that  of 
thought  or  mind,  that  Diafoirus  is  more  triumphant 
than  ever.  All  would  reply  in  accordance  with  him : 
"Quia  est  in  co  virtus  pensativa  qucB  facit  pensare." 
No  one  will  ever  develop  the  mysterious  process  by 
which  he  thinks. 

The  case  we  are  considering  then  might  be  ex- 
tended to  everything  in  nature.  I  know  not  whether 
there  may  not  be  found  in  this  profound  and  un- 
fathomable gulf  of  mystery  an  evidence  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Supreme  Being.  There  is  a  secret  in  the 
originating  or  conservatory  principles  of  all  beings, 
from  a  pebble  on  the  seashore  to  Saturn's  Ring  and 
the  Milky  Way.  But  how  can  there  be  a  secret 
which  no  one  knows?  It  would  seem  that  some 
being  must  exist  who  can  develop  all. 

Some  learned  men,  with  a  view  to  enlighten  our 
ignorance,  tell  us  that  we  must  form  systems ;   that 


326  Philosophical 

we  shall  at  last  find  the  secret  out.  But  we  have  so 
long  sought  without  obtaining  any  explanation  that 
disgust  against  further  search  has  very  naturally 
succeeded.  That,  say  they,  is  the  mere  indolence  of 
philosophy ;  no,  it  is  the  rational  repose  of  men  who 
have  exerted  themselves  and  run  an  active  race  in 
vain.  And  after  all,  it  must  be  admitted  that  indo- 
lent philosophy  is  far  preferable  to  turbulent  divinity 
and  metaphysical  delusion. 

FAITH. 

SECTION   I. 

What  is  faith?  Is  it  to  believe  that  which  is 
evident?  No.  It  is  perfectly  evident  to  my  mind 
that  there  exists  a  necessary,  eternal,  supreme,  and 
intelligent  being.  This  is  no  matter  of  faith,  but 
of  reason.  I  have  no  merit  in  thinking  that  this 
eternal  and  infinite  being,  whom  I  consider  as  vir- 
tue, as  goodness  itself,  is  desirous  that  I  should  be 
good  and  virtuous.  Faith  consists  in  believing  not 
what  seems  true,  but  what  seems  false  to  our  under- 
standing. The  Asiatics  can  only  by  faith  believe 
the  journey  of  Mahomet  to  the  seven  planets,  and 
the  incarnations  of  the  god  Fo,  of  Vishnu,  Xaca, 
Brahma,  and  Sommonocodom.  They  submit  their 
understandings ;  they  tremble  to  examine :  wishing 
to  avoid  being  either  impaled  or  burned,  they  say : 
"I  believe." 

We  do  not  here  intend  the  slightest  allusion  to 
the  Catholic  faith.     Not  only  do  we  revere  it,  but 


Dictionary.  327 

T\'e  possess  it.  We  speak  of  the  false,  lying  faith  of 
other  nations  of  the  world,  of  that  faith  which  is  not 
faith,  and  which  consists  only  in  words. 

There  is  a  faith  for  things  that  are  merely  aston- 
ishing and  prodigious,  and  a  faith  for  things  contra- 
dictory and  impossible. 

Vishnu  became  incarnate  five  hundred  times ; 
this  is  extremely  astonishing,  but  it  is  not,  however, 
physically  impossible ;  for  if  Vishnu  possessed  a 
soul,  he  may  have  transferred  that  soul  into  five  hun- 
dred different  bodies,  with  a  view  to  his  own  felicity. 
The  Indian,  indeed,  has  not  a  very  lively  faith ;  he 
is  not  intimately  and  decidedly  persuaded  of  these 
metamorphoses ;  but  he  will  nevertheless  say  to  his 
bonze,  "I  have  faith;  it  is  your  will  and  pleasure 
that  Vishnu  has  undergone  five  hundred  incarna- 
tions, which  is  worth  to  you  an  income  of  five  hun- 
dred rupees :  very  well ;  you  will  inveigh  against 
me,  and  denounce  me,  and  ruin  my  trade  if  I  have 
not  faith ;  but  I  have  faith,  and  here  are  ten  rupees 
over  and  above  for  you."  The  Indian  may  swear  to 
the  bonze  that  he  believes  without  taking  a  false 
oath,  for,  after  all,  there  is  no  demonstration  that 
Vishnu  has  not  actually  made  five  hundred  visits  to 
India. 

But  if  the  bonze  requires  him  to  believe  wiiat  is 
contradictory  or  impossible,  as  that  two  and  two 
make  five,  or  that  the  same  body  may  be  in  a  thou- 
sand different  places,  or  that  to  be  and  not  to  be  are 
precisely  one  and  the  same  thing ;  in  that  case,   if 


328  Philosophical 

the  Indian  says  he  has  faith  he  lies,  and  if  he  swears 
that  he  beheves  he  commits  perjury.  He  says,  there- 
fore, to  the  bonze:  "My  reverend  father,  I  cannot 
declare  that  I  believe  in  these  absurdities,  even 
though  they  should  be  worth  to  you  an  income  of 
ten  thousand  rupees  instead  of  five  hundred." 

"My  son,"  the  bonze  answers,  "give  me  twenty 
rupees  and  God  will  give  you  grace  to  believe  all 
that  you  now  do  not  believe." 

"But  how  can  you  expect  or  desire,"  rejoins  the 
Indian,  "that  God  should  do  that  by  me  which  He 
cannot  do  even  by  Himself?  It  is  impossible  that 
God  should  either  perform  or  believe  contradictions. 
I  am  very  willing  to  say,  in  order  to  give  you  satis- 
faction, that  I  believe  what  is  obscure,  but  I  cannot 
say  that  I  believe  what  is  impossible.  It  is  the  will 
of  God  that  we  should  be  virtuous,  and  not  that  we 
should  be  absurd.  I  have  already  given  you  ten  ru- 
pees ;  here  are  twenty  more ;  believe  in  thirty  ru- 
pees ;  be  an  honest  man  if  you  can  and  do  not  trou- 
ble me  any  more." 

It  is  not  thus  with  Christians.  The  faith  which 
they  have  for  things  which  they  do  not  understand 
is  founded  upon  that  which  they  do  understand ; 
they  have  grounds  of  credibility.  Jesus  Christ  per- 
formed miracles  in  Galilee ;  we  ought,  therefore,  to 
believe  all  that  He  said.  In  order  to  know  what  He 
said  we  must  consult  the  Church.  The  Church  has 
declared  the  books  which  announce  Jesus  Christ  to 
us  to  be  authentic.    We  ought,  therefore,  to  believe 


Dictionary.  329 

those  books.  Those  books  inform  us  that  he  who 
will  not  listen  to  the  Church  shall  be  considered  as 
a  tax-gatherer  or  a  Pagan ;  we  ought,  therefore,  to 
listen  to  the  Church  that  we  may  not  be  disgraced 
and  hated  like  the  farmers-general.  We  ought  to 
submit  our  reason  to  it,  not  with  infantile  and  blind 
credulity,  but  with  a  docile  faith,  such  as  reason  it- 
self would  authorize.  Such  is  Christian  faith,  par- 
ticularly the  Roman  faith,  which  is  "the  faith"  par 
excellence.  The  Lutheran,  Calvinistic,  or  Anglican 
faith  is  a  wicked  faith. 

SECTION   II. 

Divine  faith,  about  which  so  much  has  been  writ- 
ten, is  evidently  nothing  more  than  incredulity 
brought  under  subjection,  for  we  certainly  have  no 
other  faculty  than  the  understanding  by  which  we 
can  believe;  and  the  objects  of  faith  are  not  those 
of  the  understanding.  We  can  believe  only  what 
appears  to  be  true;  and  nothing  can  appear  true 
but  in  one  of  the  three  following  ways :  by  intuition 
or  feeling,  as  I  exist,  I  see  the  sun ;  by  an  accumu- 
lation of  probability  amounting  to  certainty,  as  there 
is  a  city  called  Constantinople ;  or  by  positive  dem- 
onstration, as  triangles  of  the  same  base  and  height 
are  equal. 

Faith,  therefore,  being  nothing  at  all  of  this  de- 
scription, can  no  more  be  a  belief,  a  persuasion,  than 
it  can  be  yellow  or  red.  It  can  be  nothing  but  the 
annihilation  of  reason,  a  silence  of  adoration  at  the 


330  Philosophical 

contemplation  of  things  absolutely  incomprehensi- 
ble. Thus,  speaking  philosophically,  no  person  be- 
lieves the  Trinity ;  no  person  believes  that  the  same 
body  can  be  in  a  thousand  places  at  once ;  and  he 
who  says,  I  beUeve  these  mysteries,  will  see,  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  a  doubt,  if  he  reflects  for  a 
moment  on  what  passes  in  his  mind,  that  these 
words  mean  no  more  than,  I  respect  these  mysteries ; 
I  submit  myself  to  those  who  announce  them.  For 
they  agree  with  me,  that  my  reason,  or  their  own 
reason,  believe  them  not;  but  it  is  clear  that  if  my 
reason  is  not  persuaded,  /  am  not  persuaded.  I  and 
my  reason  cannot  possibly  be  two  different  beings. 
It  is  an  absolute  contradiction  that  I  should  receive 
that  as  true  which  my  understanding  rejects  as  false. 
Faith,  therefore,  is  nothing  but  submissive  or  defer- 
ential incredulity. 

But  why  should  this  submission  be  exercised 
when  my  understanding  invincibly  recoils?  The 
reason,  we  well  know,  is,  that  my  understanding  has 
been  persuaded  that  the  mysteries  of  my  faith  are 
laid  down  by  God  Himself.  All,  then,  that  I  can  do. 
as  a  reasonable  being,  is  to  be  silent  and  adore.  This 
is  what  divines  call  external  faith ;  and  this  faith 
neither  is,  nor  can  be,  anything  more  than  respect 
for  things  incomprehensible,  in  consequence  of  the 
reliance  I  place  on  those  who  teach  them. 

If  God  Himself  were  to  say  to  me,  "Thought  is 
of  an  olive  color"  ;  "the  square  of  a  certain  number  is 
bitter" ;   I   should  certainly  understand  nothing  at 


Dictionary.  331 

all  from  these  words.  I  could  not  adopt  them  either 
as  true  or  false.  But  I  will  repeat  them,  if  He  com- 
mands me  to  do  it ;  and  I  will  make  others  repeat 
them  at  the  risk  of  my  life.  This  is  not  faith ;  it  is 
nothing  more  than  obedience. 

In  order  to  obtain  a  foundation  then  for  this  obe- 
dience, it  is  merely  necessary  to  examine  the  books 
which  require  it.  Our  understanding,  therefore, 
should  investigate  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New- 
Testament,  just  as  it  would  Plutarch  or  Livy;  and 
if  it  finds  in  them  incontestable  and  decisive  evi- 
dences— evidences  obvious  to  all  minds,  and  such  as 
would  be  admitted  by  men  of  all  nations — that  God 
Himself  is  their  author,  then  it  is  our  incumbent 
duty  to  subject  our  understanding  to  the  yoke  of 
faith. 

SECTION    III. 

We  have  long  hesitated  whether  or  not  to  publish 
the  following  article,  "Faith,"  which  we  met  with 
in  an  old  book.  Our  respect  for  the  chair  of  St. 
Peter  restrained  us.  But  some  pious  men  having 
satisfied  us  that  Alexander  VI.  and  St.  Peter  had 
nothing  in  common,  we  have  at  last  determined  to 
publish  this  curious  little  production,  and  do  it  with- 
out the  slightest  scruple. 

Prince  Pico  della  Mirandola  once  met  Pope  Alex- 
ander VI.  at  the  house  of  the  courtesan  Emilia, 
while  Lucretia,  the  holy  father's  daughter,  was  con- 
fined in  childbirth,  and  the  people  of  Rome  were 
discussing  whether  the  child  of  which  she  was  de- 


332  Philosophical 

livered  belonged  to  the  pope,  to  his  son  the  Duke  de 
Valentinois,  or  to  Lucretia's  husband,  Alphonso 
of  Aragon,  who  was  considered  by  many  as  impo- 
tent. The  conversation  immediately  became  ani- 
mated and  gay.  Cardinal  Bembo  relates  a  portion 
of  it.  "My  little  Pico,"  says  the  pope,  "whom  do  • 
you  think  the  father  of  my  grandson?"  "I  think 
your  son-in-law,"  replied  Pico.  "What !  how  can 
you  possibly  believe  such  nonsense?"  "I  believe  it 
by  faith."  "But  surely  you  know  that  an  impotent 
man  cannot  be  a  father."  "Faith,"  replied  Pico, 
"consists  in  believing  things  because  they  are  im- 
possible ;  and,  besides,  the  honor  of  your  house  de- 
mands that  Lucretia's  son  should  not  be  reputed  the 
oflfspring  of  incest.  You  require  me  to  believe  more 
incomprehensible  mysteries.  Am  I  not  bound  to  be- 
lieve that  a  serpent  spoke;  that  from  that  time  all 
mankind  were  damned ;  that  the  ass  of  Balaam  also 
spoke  with  great  eloquence ;  and  that  the  walls  of 
Jericho  fell  down  at  the  sound  of  trumpets?"  Pico 
thus  proceeded  with  a  long  train  of  all  the  prodig- 
ious things  in  which  he  believed.  Alexander  abso- 
lutely fell  back  upon  his  sofa  with  laughing.  "I  be- 
lieve all  that  as  well  as  you,"  says  he,  "for  I  well 
know  that  I  can  be  saved  only  by  faiih,  as  I  can  cer- 
tainly never  be  so  by  works."  "Ah,  holy  father !" 
says  Pico,  "you  need  neither  works  nor  faith ;  they 
are  well  enough  for  such  poor,  profane  creatures  as 
we  are ;  but  you,  who  are  absolutely  a  vice-god — 
you  may  believe  and  do  just  whatever  you  please. 


Dictionary-.  233 

You  have  the  keys  of  heaven ;  and  St.  Peter  will 
certainly  never  shut  the  door  in  your  face.  But 
with  respect  to  myself,  who  am  nothing  but  a  poor 
prince,  I  freely  confess  that  I  should  have  found 
some  very  powerful  protection  necessary,  if  I  had 
lain  with  my  own  daughter,  or  had  employed  the 
stiletto  and  night-shade  as  often  as  your  holiness." 
Alexander  VI.  understood  raillery.  "Let  us  speak 
seriously,"  says  he  to  the  prince.  "Tell  me  what 
merit  there  can  be  in  a  man's  saying  to  God  that  he 
is  persuaded  of  things  of  which,  in  fact,  he  cannot 
be  persuaded?  What  pleasure  can  this  afford  to 
God?  Between  ourselves,  a  man  who  says  that  he 
believes  what  is  impossible  to  be  believed,  is — a 
liar." 

Pico  della  Mirandola  at  this  crossed  himself  in 
great  agitation.  "My  God !"  says  he,  "I  beg  your 
holiness'  pardon  ;  but  you  are  not  a  Christian."  "I 
am  not,"  says  the  pope,  "upon  my  faith."  "I  sus- 
pected so,"  said  Pico  della  Mirandola. 

FALSITY. 

Falsity,  properly  speaking,  is  the  contrary  to 
truth;    not  intentional  lying. 

It  is  said  that  there  were  a  hundred  thousand  men 
destroyed  by  the  great  earthquake  at  Lisbon ;  this 
is  not  a  lie — it  is  a  falsity.  Falsity  is  much  more 
common  than  error ;  falsity  falls  more  on  facts,  and 
error  on  opinions.  It  is  an  error  to  believe  that  the 
sun  turns  round  the  earth ;  but  it  is  a  falsity  to  ad- 


334  Philosophical 

vance  that  Louis  XIV.  dictated  the  will  of  Charles 
II. 

The  falsity  of  a  deed  is  a  much  greater  crime 
than  a  simple  lie ;  it  is  a  legal  imposture — a  fraud 
committed  with  the  pen. 

A  man  has  a  false  mind  when  he  always  takes 
things  in  a  wrong  sense,  when,  not  considering  the 
whole,  he  attributes  to  one  side  of  an  object  that 
which  belongs  to  the  other,  and  when  this  defect  of 
judgment  has  become  habitual. 

Falseheartedness  is,  when  a  person  is  accustomed 
to  flatter,  and  to  utter  sentiments  which  he  does  not 
possess ;  this  is  worse  than  dissimulation,  and  is 
that  which  the  Latins  call  simidatio. 

There  is  much  falsity  in  historians ;  error  among 
philosophers.  Falsities  abound  in  all  polemical  writ- 
ings, and  still  more  in  satirical  ones.  False  minds 
are  insufferable,  and  false  hearts  are  horrible. 

FALSITY  OF  HUMAN  VIRTUES. 

When  the  Duke  de  la  Rochefoucauld  wrote  his 
"Thoughts  on  Self-Love,"  and  discovered  this  great 
spring  of  human  action,  one  M.  Esprit  of  the  Ora- 
tory, wrote  a  book  entitled  "Of  the  Falsity  of  Hu- 
man Virtues."  This  author  says  that  there  is  no 
virtue  but  by  grace ;  and  he  terminates  each  chapter 
by  referring  to  Christian  charity.  So  that,  accord- 
ing to  M.  Esprit,  neither  Cato,  Aristides,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  nor  Epictetus  were  good  men,  who  can  be 
found  only  among  the  Christians.  Among  the  Chris- 


Dictionary.  335 

tians,  again,  there  is  no  virtue  except  among  the 
CathoHcs ;  and  even  among  the  Cathohcs,  the  Jesuits 
must  be  excepted  as  the  enemies  of  the  Oratory  ; 
ergo,  virtue  is  scarcely  to  be  found  anywhere  except 
among  the  enemies  of  the  Jesuits. 

This  M.  Esprit  commences  by  asserting  that  pru- 
dence is  not  a  virtue ;  and  his  reason  is  that  it  is 
often  deceived.  It  is  as  if  he  had  said  that  Caesar 
was  not  a  great  captain  because  he  was  conquered 
at  Dyrrachium. 

If  M.  Esprit  had  been  a  philosopher,  he  would 
not  have  examined  prudence  as  a  virtue,  but  as  a 
talent — as  a  useful  and  happy  quality;  for  a  great 
rascal  may  be  very  prudent,  and  I  have  known  many 
such.  Oh  the  age  of  pretending  that  "Nul  n'aura  de 
vertu  que  nous  et  nos  amis!" — None  are  virtuous 
but  ourself  and  friends ! 

What  is  virtue,  my  friend  ?  It  is  to  do  good  ;  let 
us  then  do  it,  and  that  will  suffice.  But  we  give  you 
credit  for  the  motive.  What,  then !  according  to 
you,  there  is  no  difference  between  the  President  dc 
Thou  and  Ravaillac  ?  between  Cicero  and  that  Popi- 
lius  whose  life  he  saved,  and  who  afterwards  cut  off 
his  head  for  money ;  and  thou  wilt  pronounce  Epic- 
tetus  and  Porphyrins  rogues  because  they  did  not 
follow  our  dogmas?  Such  insolence  is  disgusting; 
but  I  will  say  no  more,  for  I  am  getting  angry. 


AA    001  047  197    7 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 

DATE  DUE 


.IDN  21  1979 

JUN  22  1979 

:;;:i    P  r 

JUN  0  9  1980 

t 

CI  39 

UCSD  Libr. 

